When Belgian design label Stan Editions introduced its first collection, CANDL STACKS, in 2021, it redefined the candle as more than a utilitarian object. Through modularity, color, and play, the brand invited audiences to engage with the candle as sculpture – an everyday object animated by imagination. Now, with the launch of the STACK VASE and DIFFUSER VASE SET, a new ceramics collection, the brand expands this creative universe, continuing to position design objects as cultural icons that merge surface beauty with discursive depth.
For many makers like Stan Verstraete, the artist and designer behind this creative platform, objects carry meaning not only in their material presence but also in the layered dialogue that surround them – themes like production, representation, use, and even critique.
Through this lens, the previous release CANDL STACKS is more than stacked wax forms: they embody potential and the performative acts of rearrangement enacted by their users. Each recombination becomes a moment where the audience co-authors the meaning of the work.
“These small gestures – resetting a coffee table with a pop of color, experimenting with layers, or even trying out combinations that feel slightly absurd – are what make the collection so playful and joyous,” Verstraete says.
The new ceramics line amplifies this founding framework in both intention and aesthetic. Produced in collaboration with Portuguese artisans steeped in generational knowledge, the vases and diffusers become vessels not only for flowers and fragrance but for symbolic play.
Their minimalist-yet-poetic surfaces are imbued with a sensuous immediacy through a glistening glaze, smooth texture, and contrasting colors – rosy pink against green, oxblood offsetting ivory – that speak directly to the eye and hand while their modular design encodes deeper messaging around sustainability, ritual, and expressive freedom.
“A vase, a candle, a thoughtfully set table – these are signals that spark creativity and give meaning to daily moments,” he continues.
Aroma, too, plays a role. Drawing on his background as a bioengineer, Verstraete worked with specialists to develop natural fragrances that heighten the sensory dimension of the diffusers. This convergence of science, craft, and design reinforces Stan Editions’ mission to transform traditional objects into multi-sensory experiences.
Each encounter – stacking, rearranging, or scenting a space – constitutes a performative act that enlivens the material with imagination and whimsy. In this sense, Stan Editions’ universe is kinetic as it swells with a growing repertoire of forms. The ceramics, like the candles before them, are sensuous, sculptural, and invested with the promise of shaping not only interiors but the moods and rituals that define daily life.
“For me, true luxury doesn’t lie in ownership, but in the space we leave for creativity,” Verstraete adds. “Whether it’s rearranging a candle, using a vase in new ways, or letting a diffuser subtly transform a room, each gesture is a moment of expression – one that shifts both the interior and the state of mind.”
To learn more about the new collections by Stan Editions, visit staneditions.be.
Photography courtesy of Stan Editions.