Alien Egg Vase

March 20, 2025

I’m always on the lookout for cool vases to buy so that I might one day use them in an ikebana arrangement. I’m a bit of a shopping addict, unfortunately, but the upside is that it does sometimes bring me to some hidden gem websites. I found this online vintage store in Japan that had furniture, but also a really good selection of vases.

My friend and former roommate Tahsin started practicing ikebana a couple of years ago, and happens to be fluent in Japanese. With my shopping powers, and his Japanese powers, we teamed up together to order 10 vases and get them shipped via a Japanese proxy. The shipping and vases overall were more affordable than buying the equivalent (if I could even find them) in the US.

This vase is my favorite out of the bunch I ordered, and I always mentally refer to it as the “alien egg vase”. I guess because that’s literally what it looks like to me, but subconsciously maybe it’s a nod to “Angel Egg”, the 1985 anime — one is white and perfect and one is craggly, rotten and black.

(The artist who did “Angel Egg” – Yoshitaka Amano — had a show up at Lomex that just closed. Lomex did a show with him last year, which was super disappointing and felt rushed. This year’s feels much better and sources a lot of his older work. I love his illustrations for Vampire Hunter D!)

The vase is such a unique shape and I like that the different sized openings can be used in a flower arrangement in a really flexible way. There are certain qualities that make a vase good for ikebana – having an even opening surface, or a place to put a kenzan (aka a floral frog), a certain weight to it, angles that flowers can go into the vase at, etc.

Also, I’ve just never seen anything like it so I had to have it. I think it works as a sculpture and not just a vase. While a good number of my vases are attractive to look at, it’s really clear that they’re vases and not works of art. The vase is an object of admiration 24/7, not just when there are flowers in it (and besides, there’s a good chance my arrangement won’t even be good. I always get humbled during my ikebana lessons).

You can view the vases they have available here: https://grizzlytackle.jp/collections/flowervase. If you get a proxy to get them shipped, let me know and let me tag along on the order lol.