Swid & Powell "tuxedo" Porcelain Plates

Very beautiful series of 10 large flat plates (30.5cm) in white porcelain with black geometric decoration.
This is the "Tuxedo" model by Swid Powell in collaboration with the architectural firm Gwathmey Siegel.
Marked on the reverse.
These are all in perfect condition. Given their size, they can be used as presentation plates or combined with other services to create a very graphic table.
Shipping costs extra.
The New York-based tableware company Swid Powell produced some of the most original porcelain and silverware pieces of the 1980s in collaboration with international architects and designers. It received renewed attention in 2007, when the Yale University Art Gallery mounted the exhibition "The Architect's Table: Swid Powell and Postmodern Design", celebrating the donation of the company's documents to its collection. Swid Powell was founded in 1982 by Nan Swid and Addie Powell, who met while working for the modernist furniture company Knoll. Their idea was to to translate the aesthetic of postmodern design from the skyscraper to the dining table, and they involved nine leading architects in their preliminary discussions. Among them were Philip Johnson, Stanley Tigerman, and Richard Meier, all of whom expressed enthusiasm for making their designs accessible beyond the small group with the funds to commission buildings from them. The first Swid Powell collection was launched in 1984, accompanied by a bold, graphic print campaign in keeping with the advertising trends of the time. The firm’s best-known collaboration was with Philadelphia-based Robert Venturi, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, whose patterns—particularly the Grandmother floral design inspired by a tablecloth Venturi had seen in a colleague’s grandmother’s home—adorned Swid Powell china as well as furniture and clothing. The firm also partnered with architect Richard Meier, whose geometric designs were partly inspired by those of Josef Hoffmann and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Swid Powell also worked with Arata Isosaki, Ettore Sottsass, Zaha Hadid and George Sowden, creating products that incorporated the bright, saturated colours and entrepreneurial spirit of popular and historical references, such as classical columns, that animated postmodern design in the 1980s. The Chicago Blue porcelain pattern designed for Lloyds Powell by the firm of Gwathmey Siegel references the distinctive patterns of Frank Lloyd Wright’s leaded glass windows. As you’ll see in the examples below, Swid Powell continued to produce sophisticated and fashionable interior items throughout the decade and beyond.