
words Anna Bates
Boiled and stretched leather was used to make London-based designer Simon Hasan’s series of five luxury vases for Sotheby’s auction house.
The vases are an extension of Hasan’s Royal College of Art 2008 graduation project, where he wrapped sodden leather around wooden profiles of jars and wine bottles and then let it shrink around the shape. But rather than the splash of car paint that decorates the originals, these are gilded to “add a touch of refinement” and provide a contrast to the boiled leather, making them fit for the auction house – where all five sold straight away.