Although he started out in fashion, Japanese artist Yoichi Ohira has received great critical acclaim for his design work in Italian glass sculptures. While working in fashion in the early 1970s, Ohira was inspired by a television program on Murano-style glass that led him to Venice, starting his education in glass-making at the Academy of Fine Arts. His many years of schooling and collaboration allowed him to hone his craft, leading up to his breakout design series of bottles for Vetreria de Majo in the early 1980s.

Since the early 1990s, Ohira has worked in close collaboration with Venetian glass maestros on one-of-a-kind works (so closely that the works are signed by both him and the glass maestro collaborator). His glas...