Mother-daughter design duos are rare — not just because they don't happen often, but because translating that bond into business is a delicate art. The stakes are emotional, the feedback personal. But when it works, the result is often more than the sum of its parts: a kind of inherited intuition, sharpened into something both commercially viable and aesthetically alchemical.
We’ve seen that magic in female-founded home brands and firms like Sissy + Marley Interior Design, the acclaimed Brooklyn studio helmed by Diana Rice and Chelsea Reale, or in the story of Louisa and Jess Maybury of JMaybury Textiles — a London-based label known for its luxurious global textiles, where daughter Jess stepped away from a high-fashion modeling career to join her mother full-time.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder: how easy — or excruciating — could that dynamic be when work, family, and aesthetics collide? Out of curiosity (and admiration), I asked one of my favorite mother-daughter pairings — Louise Roe and Sophia Roe, the duo behind the S.R. Collection — for a look behind the scenes.
A scroll through Louise Roe’s archive confirms what most already suspect: this is someone who thinks in silhouettes. Her fashion pedigree — degree and all — is obvious in the way she approaches interiors: a designer’s sense of proportion that bridges utility.
Since launching her homewares brand in 2010, she’s brought that same precision to furniture, decor, and tableware, with references that land somewhere between early Art Deco, Bauhaus minimalism, and 30s Brutalism.
Enter the S.R. Collection, a permanent tableware collaboration with her daughter, Sophia Roe. The collection, named for Sophia’s initials, is Louise’s Bauhaus-leaning eye softened by Sophia’s more romantic sensibilities.
“It is a poetic and classic tableware series where different ingredients mix and match — whether you use it as a single object or together,” they explain. Form meets feeling. Masculine meets feminine. The dynamic at the table is the dynamic between them.
Choosing tableware, rather than another homeware category, was a means of elevating a classic mother-daughter pastime: gathering for meals.
Sophia puts it plainly: “It brings us even more together when using it. It’s a table story of how we finally have the time to sit along the table together, appreciating each other’s companies.”
Though it’s not their first time working together on the business front, S.R. remains their only collaborative collection. “We’ve been collaborating and inspiring each other from the very beginning of our life together,” they say. “Since we are both driven by aesthetics, and how important the ‘eye’ and feelings from what we see matters, we have always been collaboration.”
Of course, even intuitive collaborators have their tension points. “The only challenge we both find challenging is when time is too short,” they admit. “We are both very impulsive and allow ourselves to be it.” But even that — deadlines, indecision, perfectionism — is shared. If you must hit a creative wall, hit it together.
The admiration, though, is mutual. “She has an opinion about how things look,” Sophia says of her mother. “And how it affects our mood.”
Louise, in turn, gives her daughter space to shape her own point of view. “She has always given me the space to reflect on what is my personal style,” Sophia notes.
A mother’s instinct, and a daughter’s eye. It seems that magic lies at the table itself, set somewhere between tradition and transformation. Shop the pieces, below.
Off-white, slightly off-kilter, and turned by hand, this dinnerware set sheds stiffness for charm.
The Bauhaus influences in this cup-and-saucer set are obvious: cool curves and geometric shapes abound.
This aptly named carafe is meant to mimic the levity of a bubble: light, spherical, and, with the contrast swirling stopper — mesmerizingly magical.
Standalone sculpture or tray, this piece does not discriminate with its intentional irregularities, giving rise to a transfixing transparent texture.
Black, bulbous, and an edgy foil to otherwise fanciful stems — it’s a contradiction that’s evident in the textured finish of the vase itself.
“S.R.” reads the bottom corner of this coordinating black-bordered napkin set — a love note to the collaborative collection.
Mothers — we all have them. If you’ve yet to find the perfect something for yours, consult our edit of Mother’s Day home gifts.
