Elina Vassilaki on beauty, memory, and the art of the handmade
The idea for Kalopsia was born not from a business plan, but from a deeply personal search for meaning and beauty in the everyday. Elina Vassilaki, founder and creative mind behind the brand, was looking for something she could not find: soulful objects that brought together elegance and imperfection, design and emotion. “Our homes,” she says, “should reflect our stories, our emotions, and a sense of wonder. I couldn’t find the right pieces—so I decided to create them.”
It all began intuitively—with sketches, textures, and fragments of memory. Elina partnered with master ceramicists across Greece, artisans who shared her belief in slow, intentional design and who understood the silent language of clay. The name Kalopsia—a Greek word describing the illusion that things are more beautiful than they truly are—became the guiding philosophy: a celebration of the handmade, the poetic, and the quietly imperfect.
What makes Kalopsia ceramics so distinct is the depth of craftsmanship and intimacy in their making. Each piece is hand-shaped in small studios using traditional techniques passed down through generations. “These aren’t mass-produced objects,” Elina explains. “They’re born slowly, from natural materials and inspired hands. A slight asymmetry, a glaze that catches the light, a texture that begs to be touched—these aren’t flaws, they’re signatures of the human hand.” She sees each object as a kind of companion—subtle, emotional, and deeply personal. “They tell stories of sun-drenched islands, ancient rituals, and modern design softened by memory.”
Beyond her work as an artist, Elina is also known for her refined hospitality. For her, setting a summer table is not merely decorative—it’s a form of artistic expression. She begins with a neutral base: soft linen in ivory or stone. Then come the ceramics, layered with intention. Hand-thrown plates in seafoam glaze sit beside ochre bowls and powdery blues. “I mix and match,” she says, “allowing imperfection and variation to create rhythm.” Fresh seasonal flowers—wild olive branches, bougainvillea—find their place in sculptural vases or water carafes. Citrus fruits are scattered like sunlight. Linen napkins are tied with twine or slipped into ceramic rings. And when the lunch stretches into evening, candlelight flickers from ceramic holders or fairy lights tangled in nearby trees. “The goal,” she says, “is not perfection, but presence. A table that feels alive.”
In her own home, ceramics are everywhere—not just as functional objects, but as punctuation in the visual language of a space. “A bowl may sit empty, simply to catch the light,” Elina says. “A tall vase might stand alone, like a quiet guardian.” She creates small altars in forgotten corners: a stack of books, a candle, a single ceramic piece. These vignettes bring soul to a space. Her approach is guided by contrast and scale—a large, expressive object in an otherwise minimal room, a piece whose glaze changes over time, becoming softer, more storied, more human. “Kalopsia pieces are made to live with you. They age beautifully. They become part of your story.”
Elina lives in Athens, a city she describes as a “treasure chest of contradictions.” It is there, in the tension between ancient stones and contemporary chaos, that she draws much of her inspiration. She walks the winding streets of Plaka and Anafiotika, collecting textures and tones: the blue shutters, the weathered marble, the unruly balconies. “Even the ceramic tiles in a metro station, the way light hits a wall, or the hands of a vendor in the market—these moments find their way into my work.”
She visits the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Cycladic Art regularly, drawn to their quiet clarity and timeless forms. “There’s such modernity in ancient simplicity,” she notes. For ten years, she lived with her family in the centre of Athens. “Every walk brought new images—of beauty, of strength, of quiet nobility. That’s when I realised, I wanted to create something that connected the past with the present. Ceramics that could belong in both classic and contemporary spaces, indoors or out.”
And then there is the rest of Greece. The deep olive green of the Peloponnese. The brilliant, joyful blue of the sky. The warm, honeyed yellow of the islands. “These colours calm the soul,” she says. “They speak of quiet eternity.” They appear again and again in her glazes, in the moods of her forms. “And always, the sun—our sun—the warmest. And the sea. That deep, soulful blue. This is my Greece. This is my inspiration.”
See more of her work at Kalopsia
