Sabine Marcelis Planter

Dutch-Kiwi designer Sabine Marcelis’s work is at the forefront of contemporary material innovation in product and installation design. She works with glass manufacturers and more, forging partnerships across her industry to bring her ambitiously experimental projects to fruition.

Marcelis’s focus is on allowing happenstance sensory experiences to emerge by juxtaposing combinations of unlikely materials and colors. She was educated at the Design Academy Eindhoven and since founding her eponymous studio in 2011 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, she has built a remarkable roster of clients in fashion, architecture and art.

Marcelis has created signature pieces for the likes of Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm OMA, high-fashion labels Fendi and Isabel Marant and luxury beauty brand Aēsop. She has also exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in Milan and won Wallpaper* magazine’s Designer of the Year award for 2020.

Marcelis was invited to create a sculptural intervention for the interiors of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s iconic Barcelona Pavilion, which saw the debut of the pair’s timeless Barcelona chair in 1929. For her “No Fear of Glass” exhibition, the designer subverted the original request made to van der Rohe to “not use too much glass” by designing chaise longues, pillar lights and a fountain that feature glass as the main material. The rest of her work is informed by a similarly sophisticated playfulness, as evident in the charming forms she creates — she has designed doughnut-shaped rugs, the multifunctional resin Candy Cube side tables and colorful asymmetrical glass mirrors.

Marcelis has the rare ability to create dynamic and fluid experiences by pushing the limits of craftsmanship. While her enchanting seating, lighting and other furnishings may appear effortless due to their fluid and simple forms, they are the result of relentless attention to detail and venturesome experiments with materiality.

Shop a variety of Sabine Marcelis's designs on 1stDibs.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

For thousands of years, vases and vessels have had meaningful functional value in civilizations all over the world. In Ancient Greece, ceramic vessels were used for transporting water and dry goods, holding bouquets of flowers, for storage and more. Outside of utilitarian use, in cities such as Athens, vases were a medium for artistic expression — pottery was a canvas for artists to illustrate their cultures’ unique people, beliefs and more. And pottery skills were handed down from fathers to sons.

Every antique and vintage vase and vessel, from decorative Italian urns to French 19th-century Louis XVI–style lidded vases, carries with it a rich, layered story. 

On 1stDibs, there is a vast array of vases and vessels in a variety of colors, sizes and shapes. Our collection features vessels made from delicate materials such as ceramic and glass as well as durable materials like rustproof metals and stone.

A contemporary vase can help introduce an air of elegance to your minimalist space while an antique Chinese jar would make a luxurious addition to an Asian-inspired interior. Alternatively, if you’re looking for a statement piece, consider an Art Deco vase crafted by Italian architect and furniture designer Gio Ponti.

Vases and vessels — be they handmade pots, handblown glass wine bottles or otherwise — are versatile, practical decorative objects, and no matter your particular design preferences, furniture style or color scheme, they can add beauty and warmth to any home. Find yours on 1stDibs today.