Collection: Ilex Studio

London-based Ilex Studio is the brainchild of Ed Spurr and Amy Hall Browne, who spent years perfecting the optimum design, shape, and performance of their candles and vases. The studio is driven by a mission to promote the growth and planting of more trees — their designs guided by the ancient Chinese proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

Their aesthetic traces back to Spurr's time at Matthew Marks Gallery in New York, where he became transfixed by Ellsworth Kelly's plant drawings. "These are observations of the form of leaves or flowers or fruit — their contour drawn in clean strokes of pencil or pen and centered on the page," he explains. It was at a celebratory dinner following a Kelly exhibition opening that the idea crystallized: each table decorated with a single plant specimen from Kelly's catalogue, arranged in individual small vases. "It was that moment that I understood the power of having a single branch to observe a plant's beauty and form."