For her recent collaboration with Crate and Barrel Athena embraced the idea throughout the collection: in the A Coste glassware, the Pompeii pedestal, the Cannelée vase series, mugs, and linen lamp shades. It all started in the fluted portal entry of her Brooklyn bathroom, a space in her home that offered little utility—or as most designers might see it, an opportunity to make an area as impactful as possible. “On my master floor, architecture informed the space,” Athena explains in her book Live Beautiful. “Grand double doors led to the master bathroom, boasting an old-world style bathtub, plaster walls, and a marble fireplace, but the hallway in between served no purpose,” she continues.
The solution lies in classical architecture. “Obsessed with collecting plinths and pillars for the home, I was attracted to ancient Greek marble columns, but it wasn’t until I saw a wood-paneled room at the University of Padua designed by Gio Ponti that I found what I was after. I wrapped fluted plaster up the walls and over the ceiling…,” she says. Athena brought in Kamp Studios to bring her vision to life and the look has soared in popularity ever since (not to mention cemented their status as the leader in the old-world plaster technique).
