Zsófia Zala

Zsófia Zala was born in 1996 in Budapest. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Product Design from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in 2018 and completed her Master’s in Product Design in 2024. In 2019, she was awarded the Kozma Lajos Applied Arts Scholarship, which she used for product development based on plant waste. The resulting objects became the first pieces of the Harm Less project. Since then, she has worked on numerous sustainability-related projects under the brand name, designing not only products but also installations, and conducting art workshops.

About the brand

Objects created by Harm less are characterized by a diverse and sustainable use of materials, a close connection to nature, a form inspired by tradition, and an experimental attitude. These objects exist on the boundary between industrial design and fine art: due to their unrepeatable details, they resemble works of art.

About the object

„Merengő” dressing table

While Zsófia Zala was designing  her masterpiece, her aim was to create a piece of furniture that would be connected to the past by reviving the tradition of ornamentation, and that would become human through the details of its craftsmanship – thus creating a long-term preservation and transmission of the furniture. She chose the dressing table as the object of my design because she  was struck by the personality of the furniture and the everyday ritual of facial grooming at the table. In the Merengő dressing table, realized in the workshops of the university, handcrafted ceramic details meet mass-producible oak construction. The furniture’s geometric ornamentation is linked to femininity: water as a feminine symbol appears in the lines of the dressing table.