Design Insight: How Yogita's childhood inspired the Claude marble vase

Hi, I’m Uunatii!! I'm a social media strategist at Ware, and this is what Yogita told me when she explained the story behind the Claude Collection.

“My family’s marble business is almost as old as I am, so I grew up surrounded by stones,” she said. 

"When I was a kid, I would stare at marble the way other children stared at clouds, trying to find faces, mountains, rivers, entire worlds hidden in the veins. The marks and movements looked to me like paintings frozen in time, as if nature had used marble as her canvas, for recording her moods across centuries.”

 

But as she (Yogita) grew older, that wonder slowly gave way to practicality, until one day, when she was in her college Parsons school, her tauji had sent her a postcard with Claude Monet's water lilies painting. 

When she read about what Monet felt when he painted his Water Lilies, it reminded her(Yogita) of how marble used to make her feel.

“I realised that what Monet saw in his pond, I had been seeing in marble all along. And that feeling of wonder & seeing nature express, it stayed with me.” 

That’s when she knew that she wanted to preserve that quiet, childlike sense of awe. To let people experience marble not just as a material, but as art. Since the goal with Claude was to present marble as nature’s work of art, the overall shape was kept rectangular, so your eyes focus only on the marble itself.

Yet the design feels soft and inviting -the slab subtly curves at the corners, with two delicate strips of white marble marking the intersection of the front and back. The base is heavy but hidden, slightly raised to give the vase balance and quiet presence. 

Each section of marble was chosen for its character, the veins, the movement, the emotion, etc, like complete paintings in themselves.

Even though Claude is designed as a marble vase, it’s meant to stand alone, complete, contemplative, and full of still life.

“For me, Claude isn’t about creating something new,” she said. “It’s about returning to that feeling I had as a child of seeing beauty where no one else was looking.”

 

Claude is a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be made; sometimes, it’s simply found. 
We hope that when you hold a piece of Claude, you feel that same quiet wonder!

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