“When I discovered Memphis it really triggered something in me, because of the combination of how fun it is and how beautiful it is.”

Sophie Lou Jacobsen

Inspired by the Memphis Group and known for her playful, wavy home goods, the French-American designer is now channeling Italo disco in a new series unveiled at Milan’s Salone del Mobile

By Elena Clavarino

If the name Sophie Lou Jacobsen doesn’t ring a bell, her designs very well might. There are a few ways that could be true: should you be on the houseware side of the Instagram algorithm, Jacobsen’s wavy glass Ripple Cup, which went viral in 2020, surely appeared on your feed; should you be an art-history person, her wiggly, neon-pop silhouettes might call to mind Ettore Sottsass’s Memphis Group; and should you be an avid New York Times reader, you’d know Jacobsen as the woman leading a new wave of a budding design movement described last fall in a story titled “Glassware Is Getting Weird and Wobbly.”

Since 2019, the 38-year-old has run her eponymous brand from Brooklyn, where she lives and keeps her studio. But Milan is practically a second home. Jacobsen has been going regularly since meeting her boyfriend, Davide Coppo, at an event she hosted at his wine bar, Palinurobar, during the 2023 Salone del Mobile.