With a creative world that bridges both food and design, Athena yearned for a collection that expressed the entirety of the home, from the kitchen to tabletop, décor, and furniture. Crate & Barrel’s leading design team was the perfect partner to co-design a collection that is a unified reflection of their multifaceted approach and appreciation for beautiful, functional design.
Design:
The Athena Calderone for Crate & Barrel Collection Is Here!
A natural instinct for innovation and a strong connection to their audience was the jumping-off point, then the collaborative process began. Months of workshopping, researching, and designing resulted in a 100+ piece collection that paired Athena’s aspirational vision and commitment to live beautiful with Crate & Barrel’s design-centric craftsmanship and shared values of living with purpose and intention.
“The shared vision of making beautiful design accessible to all was truly captured through this collaboration with Crate & Barrel and we can’t wait to see how people style the pieces.”
Inspired by elements of contemporary, global design, the Collection draws on Athena’s signature style of making familiar shapes feel new and fresh paired with Crate & Barrel’s rich heritage of modern design. Each one references a memory, a place, or a time that fascinated or inspired them into making it a reality. Much like the informed collection that took Athena years to curate for her own home, these products connect past, present, and future, by mixing materials, finishes, and periods of architectural influence.
“Interpretation is the best part. Knowing that the same object in each home expresses itself differently. Each person will bring these pieces into their homes and use them to express their design dialog in a way only they can—how they use it, style it, and make it their own.”
“We’re excited for that boom of alchemy you can’t anticipate until you see the pieces together in a new space.”
The entire collection brings ease and elegance to any home. The Scandinavian-inspired shearling La Tuco Chair, and the Angolare sofa featuring soft mohair fabric, bring warmth to living spaces. The entertaining pieces create an elevated tone atop the El Taller Dining Table, with details like the European revival ridged motif of the Orlet Porcelain dinnerware. While décor including the Crucible Planters and the Facette and Enorme Cannelee, give ancient forms a sleek, modern look.
This collaboration embodies that unique process of fine-tuning objects, furniture, and décor to create timeless pieces that could be at home in any context, era, or architectural style. The cerused wood and travertine Revival tables come directly from that knack for adaptation. Derived from Athena’s mid-century French walnut side table, once crushed seemingly beyond repair in a delivery accident (and painstakingly rebuilt to find new life as a focal point in her living room) is now a featured element in the Collection. The Revival ridged motif also reappears throughout—on furniture legs, on the A Coste glassware, and Saluti and Ourlet porcelain dinnerware—echoing a love of fluted styles familiar in Athena’s homes.
The Strana table (aka the “weirdo”) is based on a unique sculptural one-off unearthed at an estate sale. The angular curves of the Angolare sofa, pairing soft lines with hard edges, take inspiration from 1970s Italian and German forms and tap into Athena and Crate & Barrel’s love for juxtaposition.
“Once something is in our head, we fall down a rabbit hole of discovery and fixate until we find it, or make it.”
A favorite, Le Tuco, is a Scandinavian-inspired shearling chair named for the preferred seat of Athena’s beloved pup in their Amagansett home. Specifically reworked from a traditionally oversized armchair into a more petite frame, Le Tuco embodies the European elegance of scale in each piece.
“We loved honing each piece. As I worked with the Crate & Barrel team, we thought about shapes often, and how two pieces connect to or contrast one another. To me, successful design is simply magic when there is conflict and cohesion at once, be it on a plate, in a piece of furniture, or throughout an entire home. This collection is that magic personified.”
The defining note of the collaboration is the inspiration behind the Es Taller (aka “it’s a workshop” in Spanish) dining table. The dining table is “the workshop” in every home—the place to bond with loved ones and develop community, a conduit of connectivity. A refined version of the reclaimed wood dining table in Athena’s Amagansett home, the Es Taller is the metaphorical bridge between the varied elements of her creative life—design, food, family, and friends—where all the emotion and community transpires. The channel detail surrounding the perimeter represents the fluid and constant flow of connection and is just the sort of meaningful, origin-rich feature Athena most loves.
“For years I have continually referenced my dining table as my ‘workshop’—it’s where I workshop relationships, where I workshop a new dish, where I workshop my own creativity. We loved to fuse together these two separate ideas, but at its core, this table is rooted in minimalism and functionality, our ‘forever workshop.’”
Through their own experimentation and curation, Athena and Crate & Barrel have given birth to a Collection that connects the past and the future, granting people access to pieces that have long been out of reach.
“This window into our unapologetic trust in adaptation is at the epicenter of what we do. It is also what we love about design—to make something your own. We also encourage others to trust their eye and hold onto the belief that if something makes your heart go pitter-patter then it belongs in your home, risks included.”
Through this adaptive alchemy, Athena and Crate & Barrel have fused beauty with utility, turning simple, everyday experiences into something indelible, echoing their live beautiful mantra.
Keep scrolling to shop the Athena Calderone for Crate & Barrel collection and be sure to show us how you style them at home by tagging us on Instagram using the hashtag #AthenaForCrate — we can’t wait to see your creations!
