Supreme x Bitossi Spring 2023 Rimini Blu Vase, Limited Edition, Italy.

Supreme’s ascent from neighborhood cult favorite to auction star is a master class in brand marketing, based on creating hard-to-build desire. Launched in New York City in 1994, the iconic streetwear brand with a subversive attitude has attracted a following that ranges from downtown skaters to fashion's elite.

After a short-lived stint as a salesman for downtown Manhattan store Parachute and running a Stüssy branch as well as his own retail outlet, Union, British ex-pat James Jebbia opened Supreme, “the cool, cool shop … no big brands or anything.” The founder and director sold skateboards and sneakers, beanies, tees and hoodies while movies like Mean Streets and loud hip-hop played in the background, attracting a young downtown crowd of skateboarders, artists and entrepreneurs who found the store’s counterculture ethos appealing.

With success came brand collaborations big and small — all tightly controlled by Jebbia, who is renowned for unfailing business instincts — ensuring waiting lists and lines at new product launches. A 2012 partnership with Comme des Garçons brought Supreme avant-garde fashion followers with deeper pockets. 

“I don’t think enough people take risks, and when you do, people respond — in music, in art, in fashion,” Jebbia told Vogue. He seemed to be taking a risk working with big brands. But although some fans accused him of selling out with Supreme’s Fall/Winter 2017 collaboration with Louis Vuitton, most did not, including the winning bidder for the Malle trunk at Christie’s. 

A curated “Artist Series” of Supreme skate decks was inaugurated in 2001 when the then-not-so-famous street artist KAWS, aka Brian Donnelly, designed his Chum boards, a pair of which, signed, went for $32,000, four times their estimate, at the “Handbags X Hype” sale. The series now includes creations by Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Damien Hirst, the Chapman Brothers and George Condo.

Find Supreme shirts, hoodies, jackets and other clothing and accessories on 1stDibs.

Like a Fellini movie, the ceramics of the famed Italian company Bitossi Ceramiche embody a creative spectrum that ranges from the playful and earthy to the high-minded and provocative. Based in Florence, Bitossi draws on craft traditions that date back to the 1500s. These find expression in Bitossi pottery that includes artisanal vintage vases and animal figures by the firm’s longtime art director Aldo Londi, as well as the colorful, totemic vessels designed by the high priest of postmodernism, Ettore Sottsass.

Bitossi was incorporated by Guido Bitossi in 1921, though the family began making art pottery in the mid-19th century. In the 1930s, Londi came aboard, bringing with him a mindset that respected time-honored craft, yet looked also to the future. On the one hand, Londi’s perspective fostered the making of Bitossi’s popular whimsical cats, owls, horses and other animal figures, hand-shaped and -carved and finished in a rich azure glaze known as “Rimini Blue.”

But with his other hand, Londi reached out to thoughtful, experimental designers such as Sottsass. After hiring Sottsass to design ceramics for his New York imports company, Raymor, American entrepreneur Irving Richards connected the Milanese design polymath to Londi, who introduced Sottsass to ceramics in the 1950s.

During that decade, some 20 years before he founded the Memphis postmodern design collective in Milan, Sottsass used the Bitossi kilns to create timeless works that manifest both primitive forms and modern geometries. In later decades, Bitossi would welcome new generations of designers, which have included such names as Ginevra Bocini and Karim Rashid.

While always looking forward, Bitossi is firm in their belief that mastery of craft is the first step towards beautiful design. As you will see from the works offered on these pages, that is a winning philosophy.

Find a collection of vintage Bitossi decorative objects, lighting and serveware on 1stDibs.