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Second Helping

A recent graduate of NY's Parson's School of Design is our candidate for Most Unlikely Product Designer.

Alexa Yablonski -- Interior Design, 11/4/2003 12:00:00 AM

A recent graduate of New York's Parsons School of Design, Sarah Cihat is our candidate for Most Unlikely Product Designer. "Who needs another thing to fill up shelves?" she asks. "It's overwhelming when there's already so much waste, so much stuff." But what are product designers, if not stuff makers?

In Cihat's case, they're recyclers. She got the idea for Fifty-Cents, a line she describes as "rehabilitated dishware," at a local Salvation Army store. Wondering what could be done with the cast-off dishes, she took a sampling to school, where she had been working in ceramic, and revived them with delightful patterns in fresh-colored glazes—lace, horses, feathers, pinup girls. Sets of like-patterned, similarly sized dishes are available, as are single pieces of serving ware.

"It's very appealing to take something awful and make it interesting," says Cihat. Luckily for us, she's as innovative as she is environmentally aware—and definitely Most Likely To Succeed. At Future Perfect.

Sarah Cihat