KOBO Candles + Lotta Jansdotter for Kikkerland
The Swedish designer helps out with eight differently scented and reusable packaged gifts for the holidays
by Laura Feinstein
As the daylight hours shrink and we inch ever closer to the festive holiday season, what better way to celebrate the impending winter solstice than with a few (expertly packaged) Nordic candles? Swedish designer Lotta Jansdotter recently teamed up with NY-based artisanal soy candlemaker KOBO and Dutch design company Kikkerland for a range of organic candles with a distinctly Scandinavian feel. With names like Forest Floor (ylang, tuberose, jasmine), Cloudberry (cloudberry, rose, cassis), and Swedish Martini (triple sec, tea, peach) we imagine these white candles will be just as popular at family St. Lucia light festival celebrations as Brooklyn dinner parties.
“I loved [KOBO’s] packaging and scents,” explained Jansdotter to CH. “So they came to my studio one Saturday, and we instantly had a personal and creative connection.” The two teams then brainstormed a way to merge Jansdotter’s delicate, nature-influenced sketches with KOBO’s chic designs in a way that felt seamless. As a ceramicist, Jansdotter also conceptualized how she could incorporate her talents into the project. “We talked about making a shape that was clean and Scandinavian, and I wondered if we could make a vessel that you could reuse.” The result is a clean white porcelain ceramic container, able to be washed out and reused as a tea mug, placed inside recycled cardboard packaging that can also be broken down into decorative postcards. Jansdotter says, “Packaging is beautiful, you don’t want to just throw it away.”
While Jansdotter is a fan of all eight scents in the collection, her current favorite is Summer Linen (citrus, magnolia, amber), which conjures up the fresh air and golden sunshine of the an afternoon in the designer’s native Aland, a small group of islands in the archipelago between Finland and Sweden. The KOBO x Lotta Jansdotter for Kikkerland candles will be available for $35 in store and online for $40 from Kikkerland.
Images courtesy of Lotta Jansdotter
