It’s a difficult task pinning down Sophie Lou Jacobsen. It’s not unusual for the glassware designer – known for her playfully sculptural tableware and lighting that often references art deco geometry and organic forms – to be found somewhere, suspended mid-Atlantic, flitting between her dual bases of Paris and New York. But recently, she’s added a third city to the mix: Milan. For the past several months, she’s been embedded in the northern Italian metropolis, developing her latest collection inspired by the famed local aperitivo culture.
'In New York, we have happy hour, and in France, there is apéro, but aperitivo is a ritual really ingrained into daily life in Milan,' says the designer, who aptly titled the collection 'Disco Aperitivo', a nod to the 1980s style that still defines many of the city’s historic bars. 'I loved all the details that come with it: the little plates for snacks, the different shapes of glasses for different cocktails.'
In New York, we have happy hour, and in France, there is apéro, but aperitivo is a ritual really ingrained into daily life in Milan
Sophie Lou Jacobsen
Launched at Milan Design Week 2026, the collection, naturally, includes accessories that would have populated the interiors of bars in the 1980s: a cigarette holder whose contents fan out dramatically when its lid is lifted, for instance, as well as an ashtray, made of a solid block of optical glass with a concave void in its centre. 'It’s the classic shape you would find from that time period. But made with optical glass and embedded with Swarovski crystals, which creates these fun reflections when you look through it,' she says.
There are drinking glasses in a range of vintage silhouettes that would please any old-school bartender, each similarly adorned with crystal embellishments. The collection also encompasses patterned glass plates, handwoven silk placemats and copper-enamelled trays. 'I’ve been working with a fabricator in Venice that has been reviving the lost art of copper enamelling,' she says, describing the nearly forgotten technique. 'It’s this process of putting glass powder on top of copper and firing it to create a brightly coloured enamel. It was really popular in the 1960s and 70s – Ettore Sottsass and Gio Ponti often used it – but it was almost lost until this manufacturer recently revived it. You can make these very bold patterns with colours that are really rich.'
Jacobsen plans to present the project at a private home in Milan’s NoLo neighbourhood, which will be transformed into a week-long, intimate private soiree. 'It has a huge terrace that wraps around the entire apartment that overlooks the city,' she describes of the space. 'We’re going to transform it into an 1980s after-hours lounge; somewhere people can stop, have a drink and pause for a moment during the frenzy of the Salone.'
Cheers to that.
