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About Us
As Ella Fitzgerald sings in honeyed tones, it's "summertime and the livin' is easy." The seasons have revolved yet again, and now that the Earth has warmed, blossomed, and bloomed, it is time for escape. I've always considered the summer as an opportunity for us to go outside our everyday routines and experience something new. For some, this means taking a grand trip to an exotic locale. For others, it means a backyard picnic on a balmy night, lit only by candles and stars. With our Spring 2009 collection, we hope to inspire these moments of diversion, great and small. Les Jardins de Paris evokes the bucolic ambiance of a flowering garden, while Wish You Were Here shows tranquil afternoons spent on the most fashionable beaches in Europe. Le Marché Français, Delizioso, and Mixed Salad are collections that emphasize another summer trademark: the pleasure of delicious foods from the abundantly producing earth. The bright colors and bold patterns of these three lines encourage you to make the most of the summer months by reaping the natural bounty of the season. Upon the great success of our Mexican recycled glass lines, we've added five new designs to our Spring Collection featuring this marvelous reused medium. Hand-hewn and mouth-blown, this result is always strikingly lovely, and an important way to sustain a community. We view these five new designs as our contribution of making a difference in the environment and the sustainability of artisan craft. The theme that runs through this Spring Collection is the experience of faraway places from within our own homes. We can do this by cultivating our home environments through well-prepared meals served on singular dinnerware. Many of this season's lines were the result of our efforts to reinvent the familiar. Using the universal themes of playful escape and good food, we selected the best designs from our archives and made them new.
If Rosanna Bowles ran the world, everyone would gather around each evening and enjoy a delicious meal passed around the table on exquisite dishes while laughing, talking and sipping glasses of red wine. She believes that dining together is a giving, loving—and truly fun—experience. In her opinion, entertaining can be effortless and elegant, and nearly any occasion is cause for a celebration, from major milestones to the smallest of moments. Whether it's a birthday party for the five-year-old, a glamorous soirée with the girls, or simply a romantic evening at home, stylish dishes turn any-and every day-into a special occasion. She credits her mother for instilling her with a passion for tableware, recalling charming dishes that made their appearance on appropriate holidays. Rosanna remembers her own very first collection-Limoges plates that she unearthed from antique shops during family vacations on the Oregon Coast. Even at the tender age of five, she knew a good thing when she saw it. At 16, she visited Italy and it changed her life, opening a whole new world that was to become a vital part of her future. She returned during her junior year in college and lived near Perugia, famous for its gorgeous handcrafted ceramics-sealing her destiny of a life-long love affair with Europe, art and dinnerware. When she started her business in 1982, she naturally turned to tableware. Scraping together the seed money, she took out a loan and created Rosanna, Inc., purveyor of fabulous fashion-forward plates. Her goal: to create high-quality, functional dishware, both richly handcrafted and affordable. Once again drawing on her love of Italy, she collaborated with Italian artisans and factories to produce her original line, 'Casa Venturi' depicting a childlike drawing of a house. When the truckload of ceramics finally arrived at the doorstep of her bungalow, she unloaded the shipment herself, washing all 30,000 pieces carefully by hand. From that very first set of dishes, Rosanna's unique creations caught the eye of the press. Her initial collection was featured in Metropolitan Home magazine; since then, her story and tableware have appeared in numerous publications, including Lucky, Bon Appetit, Elle, Instyle, and O at Home. In 2006, Seattle Homes & Lifestyles magazine named Rosanna one of 100 top companies that defined design in the Northwest. Drawing international acclaim in the same year, Rosanna was awarded the prestigious honor of Gift of the Year by the Giftware Association in the United Kingdom. Today, Rosanna's international business is run her out of a teeming warehouse in Seattle, Washington. More than 22 years and millions and millions of dishes beyond her first container, she now sends truckloads of tableware to destinations across the states and around the globe. Rosanna's tableware crosses cultural boundaries, delighting people worldwide and encouraging the art and soul of entertainment-connecting with others and sharing memories along with food and drink. Always on the hunt for ideas, Rosanna keeps her dinnerware fresh by constantly traveling, reading, observing, listening and being curious about culture, fashion and the world. She often looks to the runway for style suggestions, whether it's the notion of layering, mixing and matching, the newest prints or the hottest hue. And as always, Rosanna savors what's on the table, designing dishes around tasty trends from olive oil tasting to food and wine pairings. And it's no surprise that Rosanna reaches back into her happy childhood for inspiration as well, creating instant heirlooms-fresh, modern takes on her favorites, to be enjoyed in the moment and handed down for generations to come. |
