2jane: imported tableware

2Jane Co. is named after the Greenwich Village address of owner Roxie Mae, who regarded the once-Bohemian enclave as “a direct route to life’s inspired possibilities”. Although no longer a resident, a progressive vibe is embodied in much of the imported goods soled on Roxie’s website. Above: UK-based Innermost Homeware’s ghostly vases and clocks mix contemporary design with ornate etchings. Yee-Ling Wan’s glass Fantome Clock also includes a mirrored backing that effectively double its depth, while the GHOST Candelabra and Vase are formed from intersecting planes of etched acrylic.

WelMadeProducts hails from the other side of the globe in Hong Kong, and features intricate patterns that are neither Asian nor European. Most of their tableware takes the form of wiry black scrolls against pure white bone china, but their serveware and a limited number of dinner and dessert plates are decorated with frosted etchings over clear glass.

Polly George’s Mr. and Mrs. Jones are two porcelain heads (one male, one female) that regularly adorn a drinkware collection that includes teapots, mugs and cups. If this sounds strange to you, that’s because it is–the inanimate couple forms everything from the top of teapot lids to the middle of juicers. Perhaps most disturbing is the use of the heads on the rims of mugs: for left handers, this means gazing back at a disembodied head while sipping coffee.

Also by Polly George is the Butterfly & Rose Collection. The human heads are replaced by much more conventional butterflies and roses, making for a beautiful (as opposed to macabre) collection of mugs, jugs and vases.

Lastly we have the Lehti Trays, which start at an astounding $800–but as part of the permanent collections of New York’s MoMA and London’s V&A, rightly so. These trays maintain a lightweight presence with hundreds of intersecting veins and a myriad cutouts, but are amazingly made from metal. I’m not sure how it maintains its structural integrity, but each piece definitely holds its own as a tabletop centerpiece.
2jane.com