A whole new way to brew a delicious coffee, or a cup of fine tea, is the eye-catching innovative feature of an extensive range of tableware, cookware and electrical kitchen appliances launched by designer George Sowden, under his own name brand: SOWDEN.
It is the first time that Milan-based Sowden, a co-founder of the Memphis Group that was so influential on design in the 1980s and a leading light in industrial design for the past 30 years, has put his name on any product range.
The new range draws on all his past experience with some of the biggest names in tableware and cookware including Alessi and Guzzini, through Moulinex to Pyrex and Tefal. It is also the result of over six years experience in working with Chinese manufacturers to implement new design ideas combining old and new technologies.

The most immediately appealing of these new ideas is an innovative filter at the heart of the SOWDEN coffee  and tea pots, beautifully made in stainless steel, with thousands of microscopic holes so small that they are not discernible with the naked eye. Very easy to clean and reusable, and with no paper filters, bags or capsules to throw away, the filter, being patented as SOWDEN SoftBrew, is simplicity itself.
All the users have to do is decide how much of their favourite coffee to put in the filter, add water just off the boil and let it brew naturally. The ultra-fine filter traps all but a few traces of the coffee grounds, thus producing a poured cup of natural, full-taste coffee. Complicated ways of making coffee has been a trend for years, but George Sowden has gone in the opposite direction with Softbrew; a back-to-basics, old fashioned approach, using a jug and hot water. “The good thing is that you can finally taste the difference between a Colombian and a Kenyan coffee at whatever strength you might want, because you brew coffee simply, without forcing, pressing, steaming and burning the coffee beans.”
SoftBrew filter technology has also been applied to the teapots in the range, re-launching a general use of loose tea as against “wasteful” teabags. The filter gives the tea “room to breathe” whilst gently extracting all its natural flavours.

Other innovative features of the SOWDEN range include the extensive use made of porcelain for products that are normally produced in other materials. For example, there is a porcelain toaster, a porcelain electric kettle and a porcelain juice squeezer. In a move that will appeal to the ecologically-minded, little use is made of oil-based plastic.

Similarly, flame-proof ceramic cookware with delicate heat distribution properties is being used for a range of stove-top cooking pans, whilst porcelain is again used for ovenware. “The word cooking does not say enough;” according to Sowden. “It’s the way of cooking that defines the process and, therefore, the results; ceramic gives softness to cooking with results tried and tested over centuries”.

The SOWDEN range, strikingly 21st century in design with pieces in hand-crafted white porcelain and precision machine-made stainless steel accessories, is being introduced during Milan Design Week

“In a time where there is an over supply of ‘ready-to-wear’ and ‘off-the-shelf’ consumer goods and a justified concern for our environment, there is an explicit need for our society to use our knowledge and skills to reclaim the part of the supply chain that is product design and development,” Sowden commented. “We’ve done this with the SOWDEN brand by combining design with craftsmanship, modern production technologies and materials in a global context – along the way we have also reinvented industry in a form I call the diffused factory. And we’ve put together a group of highly experienced people in production, logistics and sales in the housewares industry with the goal of bringing products directly from the designer to retail clients, simplifying and shortening the supply and value chain,” Sowden concluded.

To design for himself , creating his own brand, could certainly give a lot of freedom to George Sowden, but he has chosen to hold it in four "walls":
· USEFULNESS: beauty but also functionality, back to evergreen classics against consumerism.
· HELPFULNESS: all those tricks that make objects more profitable and intelligent.
· ACCURACY: absolute quality and ergonomics.
· CONSIDERATION:  of the health of the consumer but also of nature, through the choice of sustainable raw materials and solutions that avoid waste.