It is not every day that an independent designer gets to transform their love of making, and making in the most hands-on of ways, into a collaboration with the likes of SERAX, the heritage Belgian homeware brand known for its high-end, imaginative collections of lighting, furniture, decorative pottery, and dinnerware. But for Dutch emerging designer Annebet Philips, a Delft University of Technology Industrial Design Engineering graduate born in Gorinchem and now based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, reaching out on a whim worked out pretty well.
"I approached SERAX submitting a proposal with the concept and pictures of some of the first Carte Blanche prototypes," she says of how the line, which debuted at Maison&Objet last year, first came to be. The response was not long in coming. "They responded almost immediately and invited me to come in," Philips explains. "From that first meeting, there was a real sense of mutual enthusiasm, and things moved very naturally and quickly." They haven't quite stopped moving since, as "a completely new collection is launching this September".
