stories
The products that surround us can carry great sentimental value. For custom-made pieces inspired by your own stories, you are welcome to send an email to nina@jugosik.com.
summer lights
Just before summer I designed lamps for a family of five. At my first visit, I was struck by the beautiful collection of sea shells they kept and I learned that they spend their summers on Korcula, a beautiful Croatian island…
Three children, three lamps and to many more family adventures under the warm sun, at sea or at home!
The shells reminded me of the long summers I spent at the sea as a child. At the age of nine, I carefully wrote down every day of my holidays in my diary and I dug out one entry…
‘I slept until 10 o’clock. My mom invited our neighbor Jerneja for coffee. After breakfast we went for a swim. The water was cold. When I was diving, I found a shell. Later, I played cards with Jerneja’s son Peter. We went to our campsite where his sister Špela was. Together we played memo. After a while there was lunch. After lunch we washed the dishes. Then we went to play mini-golf. When the game was over, we went back to the beach. The sea was very rough. We threw ourselves into the big waves. We were in the water for quite a long time. Then I went to look for cuttlebones. I collected five. At 7 o’clock we went to our parents and got dressed. We went for pizza and ice cream! Finally, we danced on the terrace.’
kanc drugstore
Karin was looking for lamps that would complete the renovation of her apartment, which was designed by Ropot Group. We chose delicate bell-shaped glass… At that time, I didn’t know yet the story of her great-grandfather’s drugstore, and that their house has been always smelling nicely.
‘My great-grandparents lived here. My great-grandfather opened a drugstore on the ground floor in 1911, which was soon after taken over by his son, my grandfather Anton Kanc. It was a very popular drugstore and the first in Ljubljana with a light sign on the facade! It smelled beautifully of perfumes and various aromas inside. My grandfather was extremely skilled in mixing parfumes. I remember he had a bunch of little bottles in which he kept essential oils. He would pour the fragrances he had chosen into special bottles that customers would bring with them. A real shop without packaging, which is what we are striving for today.
I enjoyed visiting my grandparents. They were kind and attentive, and there was a lot of warmth in their house, which, as well as the joy of fragrances, has passed on to my father, who had a very refined sense of smell and was a pharmacist by profession. I am now also creating natural perfumes alongside my work.
My grandfather’s drugstore was also specialized in photographic supplies, chemicals and cameras. Maybe the photo of the drugstore was taken with one of them.’
Read more about the renovation of the apartment at: https://www.ropotgroup.com/interier-sp
frančiška
Frančiška was my grandmother’s name but I always called her Fani. As a child, she told me she lived on the farm just above Škofja Loka, and I can only vaguely remember her house. Actually I don’t know if I was ever really there or if I only imagined it so vividly from her stories as a child. Almost as clear and at the same time distant is the memory of staring at a fire salamander with my cousin and sister on the road that led past her house just a year or so later when her house was demolished.
I found the drawers that now form Frančiška sideboard in a half-demolished house on the other part of Slovenia. Between the collapsing stone walls stood a kitchen cupboard with only drawers well preserved. Back at the workshop I wanted to remove the old paint from them first, but then, after the application of color solvent, I noticed a beautiful salamander like pattern and I decided to keep it.
BLACK SIDEBOARD
My family has moved three times. Wherever we went, we also took the black living room set with us that my parents bought shortly after they got married. To be honest, I never particularly liked it, but over the years I got used to it. So whenever my parents decided to give it away I felt a little bit upset about it. At the same time, I was looking for a living room sideboard myself, so I thought I could use part of the black one. The top three cabinets from the set seemed just the right size, and I decided to add legs I stored for a long time instead of mounting them directly on the wall again. After replacing the handles and adding a stone shelf on top, the sideboard suddenly seemed a completely new piece that reminds me of the home I’m now creating myself.
