Brooklyn, sophieloujacobsen.com Sophie Lou Jacobsen has made our Hot List once before, for her furniture partnership with Sarita Posada, Studio Sayso. But Jacobsen’s solo career – which so far consists of wildly viral experiments in colored glass but will soon branch out into furniture – absolutely exploded this year. Does an Instagram shop even exist if it doesn’t carry Jacobsen’s Ripple Cups?  What is American design to you, and what excites you about it? To me, American design mirrors the eclectic nature of America as a whole. It’s such a large, young country that is made up of so many different backgrounds; cultural rules and norms don’t seem to apply here in a broader sense and I think that is reflected in design. You can see each individual designer’s personality through their work, rather than a school, or a movement. That creates a lot of individual expression, originality and exploration. But I also find that American design is entrepreneurial. I think that if I had stayed in Europe, my design career would look very different right now. I probably would have tried to find some more traditional paths to “success” and I’m not sure that I would be running my own studio. The lack of a bigger production industry here creates a new sort of creativity, a hustle to make this career path work, that opens the field up to anyone who has the stamina to see it through to the end. I find that particularly exciting!  What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year?  Before the pandemic shut everything down, I was planning to delve into more furniture and lighting. But then all the design fairs got cancelled and workshops closed, so all of those projects were put on hold. Instead, I was forced to spend more time focusing on what I already had going, this homeware collection that was gaining momentum and interest. And in the end, I’m really happy to have taken the time to do so. I feel like I’m setting up a more solid path that I can use to grow in different ways down the line, but that I may have spread myself too thin if I hadn’t taken this time to build it up properly. So with that in mind, I plan to spend this year growing this collection into a brand, and adding more variety in terms of materials and product offering. I’m hoping to make new connections … Continue reading Sophie Lou Jacobsen