American Design Hot List 2025
Studio Valerie Name
We can certainly appreciate, and award, the work of a talented designer even if we don’t ache inside to personally own it, but that ache has always accompanied our attraction to Valerie Name Bolaño’s oeuvre, from our first introduction to her scavo (“weathered”) glass collection to the first time we saw one of her Spolia bags, which are hand-carved out of solid blocks of walnut. Bolaño is the classicist of this list, trafficking both in pure, unabashed beauty — hence our covetousness, her pieces are ones you just really want to live with — as well as the use of traditional, old-world making techniques, which she filters through her contemporary formal sensibilities. Her Scavo pieces explore a midcentury process developed in Murano, while her Naos stools and benches are inspired by Greco-Roman architecture, their stamped-clay buttons referencing ancient reliefs. Her interiors feature many of her handcrafted pieces, and are rich with natural materials like wood, marble, and silk. Object-wise, her work with glass will continue this year, and she’ll add metal to the mix; she’ll also unveil a high-end jewelry atelier she’s designed in London, which is, fittingly, located inside a historical building, but made new with her singular point of view.
