The Noritake Design Collection marks a bold, collaborative initiative led by Chief Creative Director Yuichiro Hori to craft signature collections by designers from around the world. To celebrate the 120th anniversary, Noritake has partnered with global design studio Yabu Pushelberg, known for their transformative approach to luxury and innovation, to create Hoshikage, the debut tableware collection of the Noritake Design Collection. This collaboration marks a significant moment for Noritake, blending the studio’s distinctive vision with the brand’s century-old tradition of exceptional craftsmanship. Yabu Pushelberg’s influence breathes new life into Noritake, toward a future where heritage and modern creativity seamlessly converge.
The Hoshikage collection, named after the Japanese word for starlight, is a 19-piece collection that captures the grace of the celestial with mesmerizing astral patterns. In both dark and light versions, this magical play of light, color and texture reveals the perfect fusion of traditional expertise and contemporary aesthetics in a harmonious blend of handmade virtuosity and advanced technology, resulting in fine tableware that is both richly ornamental and immensely durable, translated into an intimate dining experience.
“Noritake’s exceptional skills and materials are simply unmatched anywhere in the world, and that gave us an extraordinary degree of creative freedom. It was so liberating; it felt like anything is possible,” say George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg.
Back in New York, George and Glenn were keen to move beyond the notion that only white plates ennoble the presentation of food. They began to explore an image inspired by an ethereal night sky they had glimpsed from their beach house after a dinner party. This sparked the idea of a collection transforming meals into galactic moments, showing the magic that can exist both in the universe and on our dining tables.
The textured surfaces are the result of an advanced technique called ‘yohen’, which creates lustrous glistening and often iridescent patterns and textures that reveal new dimensions, depths, and textures. This glazing process, perfected over generations, represents the essence of beauty found in imperfection, and the unpredictable nature of ceramics, which means that no two vessels are ever quite the same.
The manufacturing process is complex and labour-intensive, and a testament to Noritake’s craftsmanship and dedication to quality. The intricate patterns and finish of the new collection are the consequence of a concentrated, challenging experimental procedure, exploring how each pigment and material interacts, and using layers of reactive glazes in a completely new way. In a high temperature kiln that can achieve such heat to create the desired sense of depth and glistening effect, Noritake’s master technician and engineers set about investigating how the different layers of color would react together to achieve the unique, captivating, graduated final effect that so effectively evokes the endless scope of the universe.
The Noritake Design Collection is poised to reinterpret artisanal tableware with dynamism, sustainability, and the latest technology.
