Flying Solo - One Wo(man) shows

Title story·4 min·edition nº 01, flying solo··Munich

They open the laptop before coffee. They pack boxes after dinner. They answer the kind email and the rude one. They make the thing, market the thing, ship the thing. They do it all.

Solo brands carry a clear fingerprint: one vision, one pair of hands, one gut making the calls. They feel like a person, a literal extension of their character and personality. Running a brand alone is usually described as a limitation. Spend time with these founders and it starts to look like the point, an competitive advantage even. Over the past year, I've met many of them, doing all kinds of things. Here are four of their stories.

Eliza – REH

Eliza is a designer working at the intersection of craftsmanship and industrial production. Her brand, REH, has taken shape slowly, by intention. She wanted to get things right from the beginning. It took her years to establish two distinct production lines that she could stand behind: one for clothing and one for stoneware. From our conversation, it was clear she doesn't just want to design pretty things. She follows a holistic approach that goes beyond design. What happens between the first sketch and the final delivery matters just as much as the design itself. That's why she was particularly picky with her production partners.

Sita Harries – YABO Studios

Sita Harries arrived at metal as her primary material after starting her creative outlet in painting and photography. Eventually she trained as a goldsmith and finished her training in 2022, the same year Yabo began. She works the way she was taught: a form modelled first in wax, cast in sterling silver, then filed and finished by hand. Each piece is made to order from her atelier in Hamburg, and no two come out quite alike.

Anna Rosa – Anna Rosa Liesenfeld

A textbook example of "small by design" is Anna Rosa's label, which bears her full name. Her friends loved the bracelets she made in her free time, so she started selling them at a local market. The response surprised and convinced her to turn the hobby into a brand. Within minutes of talking with her, I could tell she ran on pure passion, her energy was truly infectious. She walked me through her creative process, what she'd learned, and the ups and downs of her journey as a small-business founder. It became obvious that this is not a means to an end.

Elisabetta – Elisabetta Lombardo

In her Berlin studio, Elisabetta Lombardo is making a vase for every one of Saturn's moons. Astronomers confirmed 128 new ones in March 2025, bringing the count to 274, so that is the size of the project. Each vase is named after its moon and carries its official number, and before she starts one she looks it up. "If there are photos of the moon, I will look at it for a while." She left the tech industry for clay and builds everything by hand, no wheel, each piece coiled or pinched over several days, finished in glazes she formulates herself. Her lava glaze goes through two firings, and in the second the surface breaks open into craters. The moon, made twice.

The ending

There was meant to be a fifth story here. Viktoria of Studio ORÁ, a former stage designer who makes playful ceramics just outside Vienna, is on maternity leave, and releases are paused until she's back. She was one of the first people I worked with and I am patiently waiting for her comeback. That is not a footnote to this story; it might be the whole point. A brand of one can close for a season and reopen, without a meeting, without asking anyone's permission. You don't scale brands like this, and why would you? This is the brand:

Studio ORÁ – beautiful everyday objects, available when life allows it.