Vicente Wolf Blog

Yesterday I traveled to Greenwich, CT, to launch the Latitude Collection that I designed for Baccarat at their beautiful location on Greenwich Avenue. I am currently the only US designer for this French crystal producer and so honored to have been selected to create beautiful pieces for them.

My favorite design in this magnificent collection is this candleholder, called Vice & Versa. The genius of Vice & Versa is that three unique parts form an exceptionally versatile whole. Each six-inch-tall unit can be used on its own as a single candlestick, or stacked in various combinations. Each unit is flexible since both its top and bottom can hold a wide or tapered candle and I think the pieces, which can be purchased singly or in groups, makes the perfect gift – particularly to yourself!

This design is so typical of my principle on acquisition: one object is chance, two are tchotchkes, and three constitute a collection.

While each unit is beautiful individually, it is when they are stacked that I think they truly become most grand. The tall, heavy piece reminds me so much of the columns that were the original inspiration on a journey to Palmyra, Syria—a port of call as far back as two millennia B.C. for caravans traveling between Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean — I saw fragments of immense stone columns that were stacked out of order. Shapes with little to do with each other were juxtaposed in unexpected sequences and looked…breathtakingly beautiful.