If Alice in Wonderland had tumbled into a uterus-inspired fever dream, she might have conjured up some of the designs found in British artist Charlotte Colbert's first-ever furniture and homeware collection. A striking debut that immediately puts her on par with some of our favorite emerging designers.
Whimsical doodles form benches and chairs, and bold, thick-lashed eyes peer out from vases, teapots, and trays. Charlotte's bespoke pieces furnish the fantastical, Wes Anderson-style residence she shares with her husband, pop artist Philip Colbert. A converted row house situated in London's Spitalfields district, this multifunctional space, designed by Chris Dyson Architects and Buchanan Studio in collaboration with the duo and dubbed Maison Colbert, serves as both a home, a gallery, and a studio.
Replete with elevators, balconies, and custom tiling, it first appeared on the pages of Vogue in 2023, having already featured in the spreads of the Financial Times' luxury sibling, HTSI, the year before: two publications that made Charlotte Colbert's playfully fanciful pieces increasingly popular among glossy titles readers, and beyond.
The collection itself began, Charlotte reveals to Livingetc, with beds. "Beds feel like portals, travel capsules to our other selves, our other realities, that 50% of our lives that we spend asleep," she says. Her particular 'travel capsule' is a plush pink piece with a sprouting uterus headboard.
The symbol of the uterus is one which Charlotte uses repeatedly throughout her work as a multimedia artist (she is also an award-winning filmmaker). "It's so basic, magical, and humbling in equal measure," she explains. "We all come from a uterus — even the king, Donald Trump, and the pope."
Beside the bed is the Atomic Marshmallow Side Table, a sandwich of circular glass panes bulging with bulbous pale pink cubes, reminiscent of Colbert's gloriously be-titted bathtub.
Each piece — from Charlotte's intricate Love Bed to her Eye Vases — is a work of art in and of itself. I wonder if it feels overwhelming to live in a home with so many artworks that demand attention.
"What's nice about being surrounded by stuff that isn't in massive distribution is the reminder that things can be reinvented. The future needn't be a clean, Apple-designed space; it could be something completely different," Charlotte weighs in.
For the artist-turned-designer, the symbol that most represents the idea of reinvention and possibility is that of the eye, "a protective talisman and invitation to visualize positive futures".
The eye appears all over her crockery, like an elegant Mad Hatter's tea party as seen through the eyes of a drug-addled paranoid. But bringing the strange and wonderful into daily objects is more than just a bit of fun. It reminds us that everything is changeable.
"I love the idea of bringing Surrealism into the everyday. If simple things can be re-imagined and reinvented, then so can the structures and systems in which we live. Surrealism invites us to dream of better futures," says Charlotte.
The creative is not prescriptive over what those futures might be. Her eyeball-imprinted crockery — and the eyes which appear across her linens, homeware, and furniture — do not so much see a specific future as they symbolize a "hope that we all remember we have some agency over it".
Charlotte Colbert's debut furniture and homeware collection is available via 1st Dibs as well as online on the artist's website. Find some of our favorite pieces from the line below.
