I'm obsessed with vessels. Not every florist is, and I understand why. You spend your time focused on the flowers, the palette, the composition. But I have always believed that what holds the arrangement matters as much as what goes into it. The mouth width, the foot and the interior depth are the decisions that determine whether your flowers sit forward or crowd in on themselves, and whether an arrangement reads as a composition or a bundle. So when it came to March and Hong Kong Art Month, I wanted to do something that addressed that question directly.
I commissioned Katarina Wells, a ceramic sculptor from Sydney, to create a collection of vessels specifically for Libertine. I also selected work by Felicia Ferrone, a designer and architect based in Milan, and Jaime Hayon, whose Ikebana Vase for Fritz Hansen is just divine. The 30-piece collection is paired with our Designer and Contemporary arrangements and was presented as a floral gallery at our Lane Crawford boutique at Pacific Place. The launch brought together designers, gallerists and collectors, people who understand that flowers and design are not separate conversations.
Katarina Wells: ceramic vessels from Sydney, Australia
I first came across Katarina's work 10 years ago when I was a buyer at Lane Crawford, and I immediately understood that she approaches ceramics the way I approach floristry: as a question about form, not just aesthetics. She works from a studio in Sydney using natural minerals, her own slips, oxide glazes and terra sigillata.
She arranges flowers herself, which matters more than you might think. When you brief a maker who does not work with flowers, you spend a lot of time explaining things that should be intuitive. With Katarina, I did not need to. The brief I gave her was specific. Every decision about the vessel, from shape to mouth width to foot diameter to interior depth, had to serve the arrangement inside it rather than simply complement it.
Each piece she developed carries an inner glaze for containing fresh stems, and the proportions are calibrated to place flowers forward. They are striking objects in their own right, but each one puts the flowers first.
Felicia Ferrone: architectural glassware from Milan, Italy
I was drawn to Felicia's work because of her architectural training. Architects think about how a thing functions before they think about how it looks, and that rigour is evident in everything she makes. She talks about the unexpected gesture, taking a form you recognise and shifting it just enough that you see it differently, and that is precisely what I want from a vessel: something that holds your attention without drawing it away from the flowers.
Each piece is hand-crafted through close collaboration with master artisans, which gives Felicia access to material and production decisions that industrial-scale manufacturing forecloses. She is among the 200-plus designers featured in Women Made: Great Women Designers, published by Phaidon, and I think her work is genuinely under-discussed given what it achieves.
Jaime Hayon for Fritz Hansen: the Ikebana Vase
The Ikebana Vase had been on my radar for some time before this collection. I believe it is an iconic and essential vessel for showcasing florals, and as such it is a permanent feature at our boutique at Lane Crawford.
Hayon designed it around the logic of ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, which means he started from the flower's requirements rather than the object's. Each piece is mouth-blown and shaped to honour the stem from cut to crown. For a florist, that kind of intentionality in a designer is rare and worth seeking out.
Hayon grew up in Madrid on skateboarding and graffiti art, which accounts for the boldness that runs through everything he makes. Fritz Hansen, founded in Denmark in 1872, has the institutional confidence to work with designers who do not need their brief simplified: Arne Jacobsen, Hans J. Wegner, and now Hayon. That history matters to me because I do not want vessels that feel temporary.
All three makers understood, each in their own way, that the vessel is not background but the first design decision. The Artist Editions collection is available in store at Lane Crawford, Pacific Place and online alongside our home accessories.
Alison Whittle, Founder, Libertine Flowers
