International Women's Day: 5 works you should have on your radar

Pia Seidel

8/3/2026

Translation: machine translated

Pictures: Pia Seidel

No manifesto for International Women's Day 2026, but five objects - seen at the Design Weeks 2025, still not forgotten.

What makes a design object unforgettable? Not always the obvious. Sometimes it's a loop of wrought iron, sometimes a glass container that deliberately gets out of hand. The new design weeks are just around the corner, but five objects from Milan, Copenhagen and Zurich from last year are still on my mind. They all come from studios that are run or founded by women.

Yael Anders: Can AI do ceramics?

What happens when AI moulds a ceramic vase? Zurich designer Yael Anders has tried it out. Together with designer Tymen Goetsch, she has developed a project that picks up on the current discourse surrounding AI in the design process and plays it out. The starting point is a hand-moulded ceramic vase. It is scanned using photogrammetry, transferred to digital and subjected to physical simulations - gravity, wind, turbulence. At a certain point, the shape is frozen, 3D-printed and then cast in a traditional ceramic mould. «It was extremely interesting to see what comes out of a collaboration with algorithms - the possibilities are very diverse», says Anders.

The result is not a tech demo, but a real object with a real attitude. Presented for the first time at the House of Switzerland in Milan, it was one of the articles that provides an answer and at the same time opens up the next horizon. «It raises new questions about how we can work with AI in design in the future - and experiments with what is already possible today», says Anders.

Worn Studio: cute? Only at first glance

Wrought iron bows. Yes, really. Natalia Ortega's «Bow Collection» for her label Worn Studio looks like someone has moulded a gift box in metal, and that is absolutely meant as a compliment.

The oversized bows serve as candle holders and are sculptures at the same time. In real life, they are heavier than they look and much more convincing than in the photo. You could marvel at them live at the Alcova exhibition in Milan.

Caralarga: factory waste becomes wall art

No greenwashing. Really not. Mexican designer Ana Holschneider founded Caralarga in 2014 - with cotton threads from a textile factory in Querétaro, which has been in production since 1846. The «Hércules» factory is part of the region's history, and you can see that in the objects. The «Frijoles Wall Hanger» is knotted by hand, each piece slightly different in size and detail. With every purchase, the studio invests in the artisan communities from which the material originates. Not a business model with a sustainability badge, but one that was intended from the outset. Shown at The White Label Project at the «3 Days of Design» - one of the quieter but more powerful moments of the week.

Geraldina Bassani Antivari: Blown against tradition

Murano glass, but as you've never seen it before. Geraldina Bassani Antivari, born 1987 in Sorengo, Ticino, lives and works in Switzerland and Italy. For the series «Insenatura», she collaborated with glass masters on Murano - and deliberately broke with tradition in the process. Murano has stood for controlled, symmetrical shapes for centuries. Bassani Antivari has instead improvised the process and deliberately left the flow of the glass to its own devices.

The resulting objects revolve around the shape of the female breast - a symbol as old as humanity itself, from the Venus figurines of the Stone Age to the Renaissance. Realised in glass and borosilicate, the pieces appear organic, physical and raw. They were on display at the Lele Projects gallery during Zurich Design Weeks.

Wknd Lab: tradition, given a new glow

A floor lamp that is supposed to bring luck - and almost does. The Lucerne-Seoul studio Wknd Lab, founded by Eunji Jun and Halin Lee, was inspired by the Korean «Norigae» tradition: small decorative pendants that traditionally symbolise good luck, prosperity and longevity. For the «Norigae Floor Light», they have combined many small tassels into one large one, thereby reinforcing the symbolic power of the original.

«By translating the essence of the 'Norigae' into light, we want to transform its meaning into something more universal, so that its blessing and symbolic meaning can be conveyed through light», says Eunji Jun. Made of glass and metal, each piece coloured by hand. At the Good Selection exhibition in Milan, the floor lamp was one of those moments where you stop for a moment and take a look.

Five objects, five approaches. And they all have one thing in common: you don't forget them so quickly - and you want to see them in real life.

Pia Seidel

Senior Editor

Pia.Seidel@digitecgalaxus.ch

Like a cheerleader, I love celebrating good design and bringing you closer to everything furniture- and interior design- related. I regularly curate simple yet sophisticated interior ideas, report on trends and interview creative minds about their work.

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