There’s much about this pandemic that’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before, but one thing distinctly calls to mind the last time a global recession hit — there are more and more designers taking things into their own hands and producing work on their own. In Australia, the up-and-coming designer Dean Toepfer had been primarily working on commissions and larger furniture pieces — like a bar cart made from a faux terrazzo composite and a sling chair upholstered in pink shag — since graduating from RMIT. But with the onset of the pandemic, Toepfer — who, coincidentally interned with yesterday’s subject, Lex Pott — decided to reassess. “Vase Versa is my first object collection, and first self-produced range,” Toepfer explains. “I went into this project wanting to design a piece that was produced in-house and could be sold at an accessible price point. I also wanted to utilize color as one of the main features.” The resulting stem vases each employ two different hues of an opaque polymer-based hybrid called Marblo — taupe and melon, melon and pink, pink and teal, teal and red, and so on. The duotone vessels can be oriented to match your decor, your botanicals — or your mood.