Sweets that you don't eat, a confectionery that you live in: Danish designer Helle Mardahl has transformed a childhood obsession into a blown glass universe that is as delicious as it is elegant.
It all started with a childhood dream—to open a candy shop. Helle Mardahl never completely abandoned it. She simply found another material for it: glass. From her studio in Copenhagen, the Danish designer creates lamps, vases, bowls, candy dishes, and stemmed glasses whose rounded shapes and vibrant colors seem straight out of an 1980s candy store. Except here, you don't bite into them—you contemplate them, touch them, place them on a table.
It was in 2009, while working closely with a glassblower on an artwork, that she discovered the material. A trip to Malta, where glasswork is ubiquitous in artisan shops, sealed the deal. A graduate of Central Saint Martins in London, where she studied fashion design, she initially explored painting, sculpture, and installation before finding in this ancient art form the common ground where everything converges. In 2017, she moved to Copenhagen and launched Helle Mardahl Studio, specializing in glass sculptures, luxury tableware, and lighting.
Her first collection, Easter , composed of egg-shaped decorative objects and glass lamps, immediately established the foundations of her world. This was followed by the Candy collection , which anchored her signature style in fruity hues and organic shapes, and the famous Bon Bons —signature pieces with almost unreal curves, resembling lollipops or balls of chewing gum frozen in glass. Designed in Denmark and produced in small batches, her creations, both refined and playful, celebrate simplicity while enhancing even the most maximalist interiors.
What is striking about Mardahl's work is the precision with which she plays with opposites. Her intensely colored pieces are vibrant and natural, fragile yet robust, simple yet ornamental. The glass, with its imperfections, trapped air bubbles, and slight irregularities, is never perfect—and it is precisely this that makes it so alive. Each piece is unique, marked by the glassmaker's hand and the breath that shaped it. The world she creates is childlike and nostalgic, influenced by Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , but never naive. There is a Scandinavian sophistication in these objects that prevents them from veering into kitsch.
The studio also collaborates on bespoke projects—lighting installations, commissions for hotels or residential spaces—and has developed a lighting collection in partnership with DWR (Design Within Reach), which includes pendant lights, wall lights, and table lamps. This is a way of expanding the Bon Bon vocabulary into interior architecture without diluting its character.
What Helle Mardahl understood better than most is that joy is a design intention in its own right. In a landscape often dominated by restraint and minimalism, her pieces assert the right to pleasure, to color, to measured excess. Not decoration, not quite pure art either—something in between, as much sculpture as a beautifully set table.
Instagram: @hellemardahl
