When a brand wants to signal its commitment to craft, few routes feel more potent than partnering with a ceramicist. There’s a reason ASMR-like videos of people going wild on a pottery wheel are popular: this particular art form is appealingly primordial, all wet clay and glaze and fire-hardened vessels. 

The tactility there is alluring, and it's snagged many a fashion designer. Jonathan Anderson, Raf Simons, and Tory Burch are all avid ceramics collectors; ex-Dior head Kris Van Assche started his own ceramic vase line; Joséphine and ex-Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey bought the historic British Burleigh Pottery firm. Ceramics often place within the LOEWE Craft Prize, while Prada occasionally exhibits ceramics.

These two worlds make for a solid pairing. So it's too bad, then, that when a major fashion brand announces a partnership with a ceramic artist on actual products, the end result often falls flat.

The second release from the JW Anderson x Wedgwood collaboration is as plain as the first: ridged mugs that may be inspired by one of Anderson’s beloved 5th-century Greek mugs (and involve an artisanal engine-turning technique), yet are still just… $425 ridged mugs. It’s the same low-energy approach Hender Scheme took with its NOTA&design home goods. Despite the Tokyo-based label’s reputation for making mass-market sneakers (and Jenga blocks and tiny piggy banks) that much better by wrapping them in leather, it misses the mark here. 

There’s one great leathery plant pot on offer, but the rest of its range offers plates, bowls and mugs in uninspired shades of beige — near indistinguishable from something you might find at any old home goods store, or a gift shop. And that’s no shade to gift-shop-ready product, like the recent Fire-King x BEAMS company mug that knew exactly what it was (a kitchy keepsake). 

A fashion label throwing its weight behind a ceramics line should mean making ceramics that are actually, y’know, interesting to look at. And to be fair, sometimes a brand hits the mark — or at least does something interesting enough to warrant firing up the kilns. Lemaire's collaborative line with French ceramicist Annie Fourmanoir may be slightly grotesque, but it's at least fascinating.

Pottery doesn’t always need to look like Lemaire and Fourmanoir’s fleshy clay breast, but here’s a modest proposal for the next brand eyeing ceramics as a means of getting some crafty cred: make it a bit ugly, or lumpy, or colorful. At the very least, an expensive, designer-backed mug should look interesting enough to justify the price. 

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