Claire Requa, Designer: B.W.I.E 10th Anniversary Shero

Black Women in Europe Blog™ 10th Anniversary notes:

I chose Claire Requa to be a Black Women in Europe Blog 10th Anniversary Shero because she makes beautiful things. I first blogged about Claire in March 2011 and she made our Power List in 2013. She makes beautiful things to adorn the body or celebrate the home. She’s won multiple awards for her creations and she’s sharing that award winning talent with us by dedicating two pieces of jewelry to our anniversary. You can grab the earrings and necklace on Etsy and admire them up close and personal.

Thank you for adorning us with your talent Claire.

Black Women in Europe Blog 10th Anniversary Afro girl earrings and necklace

Clairely jewellery – Earrings – Afro girl – pink

Clairely jewellery – Necklace- Afro girl – mirror

Claire Requa, American-Jamaican designer, did shows in 1975 at Devon House craft fairs, moved to Los Angeles in 1980 where she had a small fashion line of tie-dyed clothing. She has lived in Copenhagen since 1988.

In the 1990’s Claire Requa owned her own design shop /studio where she show-cased her own, as well as other international products and designs. Multi-faceted, her range of talents over the past three decades include clothing, textile and jewellery design, furniture “redesign”, interior innovations and renovations, graphic design and most recently, lamp design and product development.

From 2000-2007 working as a graphic designer by occupation for a product marketing company, Claire Requa was commissioned to design a lamp for an interiors publication in 2004. A prototype was made and put into production. This gave her inspiration to do more lighting.

In 2005, Claire Requa launched her own lighting creation Claire de Lune® Chandelier– a flat pack chandelier in polypropylene, PP, (and recently in acrylic), and branded her line of lighting products Claire de Lune®. She has also conceptualized and designed the carrying bag in PP as the packaging of the lamp, instead of using bulky cardboard that products typically are packaged in – making the product easy to carry from the retail outlet and very reusable. Exquisitely rounding out the concept, both the bag and the lamp are eco-friendly, and the consumer is encouraged to dispose of it in like fashion.

Claire Requa is an emerging talent and a true Designer Without Borders, taking inspiration from her current country of residence, her heritage and colorful cultural background and mixing it with her whimsical humour and creativity as well as function, to give the designs that are extremely unique and innovative expression. Claire’s creations have been featured in Danish interior magazines – Madog Bolig, Bo Bedre, Bolig Magasinet, foreign magazines such as Swiss Ideales Heim and UK’s MIX interiors, German Atrium, as well as included in blogs on Trendcurve.com and Homedecorhq.com and Design Sponge, to name a few.

She has exhibited at the following trade shows: Formland, Denmark; Tendence, Germany; Ambiente, Germany; Pulse, England; Maison et Objet, France; ICFF, NY, USA; IMM, Cologne, Germany, New Delhi, India. Most recently, has won design awards from Italy.