These are the stories that I like. Caroline Swift studied Industrial Design for textiles in Scotland. She worked for almost twenty years designing knitwear for luxury markets, working in New York, England, and Italy as head of knitwear design for Benetton. What a great time that must have been. Benetton truly transformed knitwear. They pushed the conventional boundaries of the material and created a highly-successful global brand out of it.
But that’s not what this is about.
After a sabbatical, Caroline started developing ideas for food for a book she was writing, but could not find plates that she liked for the images for the book… it was this which led her to start making her own ceramics.
Her approach to all areas of design are linked by one underlying philosophy – to create products that are pure and natural with beauty and integrity.
And she does just that with her collection of ceramics “too good to put in the cupboard.” This collection explores the interaction between displaying delicate ceramic pieces as an art form on the wall and the practicalities of using the pieces in everyday life. I love how the bare, unglazed bone china is presented on long rusted nails, the raw, exposed elements in their simplest forms.
All of the ceramics in the collection are made from bone-china and most are left unglazed, to show the beauty of the bone-china itself. It is, without exception, the most challenging ceramic material to work with but it’s color, beauty, and strength are unprecedented. It is this strength that allows it to be worked so thinly, whilst still retaining its durability. It is this contradiction between fragility and strength, between the raw and the refined, that I love about her work. I daresay she pushes the boundaries of this material as well.
All pieces are made exclusively by hand, by Caroline in her studio in Barcelona. To see more or to shop for her pieces visit her at
Caroline Swift.
All images and information are courtesy of
Caroline Swift. Thank you so much for letting me share your beautiful work.
