Tableware for hospitality.
Making tableware is our speciality; we believe that the dishes we bring to your table should be impactful, original, and have as big a connection to nature as the food served on them. Restaurants will always demand practical functionality; chefs will always insist on the wow factor that we aim to deliver by making innovative, luxurious pieces made from earthy looking clays and glazes. The Life Concept ® collection will enhance any culinary creation with designs that excite as we strive to reflect the abundant and inspiring richness of the natural world. Styles may change but the quality of our collections, which are made by skilled craftspeople with love and meticulous attention to detail, will remain. If you would like to enquire about distributing or purchasing any of our lines or to discuss creating a bespoke range, please send us a message here.
Our Heritage
Our start Life Concept® was conceived by Sidney Huang and designer Alison Appleton in early 2000’s. The tableware factory is located on a hillside looking over Dehua’s historical region and ceramic centre of excellence situated in Fujian province along China's southeast coast.
Our history The area is of great interest to archaeologists thanks to its wondrous indigenous kaolin clay. Kaolin clay transformed the ceramic making process; it is pure white and can withstand high temperatures. Research has shown that Dehua was producing ceramics as early as the Southern Song dynasty (1127 – 1279). The first Chinese porcelain to reach Europe – a small jar with a floral design in applied relief and covered in bluish white glaze, now in the St Mark's Basilica in Venice – was made in Dehua and is believed to have been brought back by Marco Polo in 1295. Since the Ming dynasty (1368 – 1644), the principle products of the Dehua kilns have been a variety of skilfully made white-ware known as ‘Blanc de Chine’ (named by French connoisseurs from the eighteenth century) it literally means ‘white from China’ super-white, fine porcelain.
Our sustainable future Dehua, now a modern town producing high quality, well-designed, tableware still thrives today; however, Blanc de Chine is precious and dwindling white clay that requires special soil minerals. We considered this situation 12 years ago, and chose to use some local common clay and minerals to make use of it, the soil comes from different villages in Dehua County, some of which are historical, such as Sakai and Sibang. With an eye on sustainability and our commitment to the environment we decided to use recycled clay, most of which is excavated from land used for new development. When hills are levelled to build new roads, infrastructure and factories, the soil and mineral formula is tested and adjusted, and the resulting clay is processed to produce our stoneware, as a result, the base colour of the products we produce varies from batch to batch, some with higher iron content, resulting in a colour that is darker or deep grey, some have less iron, making a colour that is lighter and more honey coloured.
