In her 17-year career as a superstar of U.S. women’s soccer, Megan Rapinoe racked up countless goals, an Olympic gold medal, and two FIFA World Cups. But with the launch of her first tabletop collection for the Philadelphia ceramics brand Felt + Fat, Rapinoe has gone from winning cups to making them—along with porcelain bowls, plates, vases, and trays. «I wanted to do something different and creative in colors that I resonated with,» Rapinoe says.
Megan Rapino dines on one of her plates for Felt + Fat at a celebration dinner at Crown Shy in New York City.
At a celebration dinner held earlier this week in New York City at the restaurant Crown Shy, Rapinoe and Felt + Fat’s founder Nate Mell explained how this surprising collaboration came about. She discovered the line on Instagram and had pieces at her home in Seattle. One day, she uploaded a photograph of herself to Instagram drinking coffee from a Felt + Fat mug, and Mell took note.
Crown Shy’s grilled pear and endive salad was served on a pair of porcelain trays from Rapinoe’s Aura collection.
A former art student, he got his start designing ceramics for high-end restaurants while working as a waiter at Philadelphia’s Fork. His ceramics factory in the city’s Kensington neighborhood supplies tableware to chefs as well as direct to consumers. Felt + Fat had teamed up on ceramics lines with celebrities Seth Rogan and Jason Kelce. When he saw Rapinoe loved his wares, he reached out to ask if she would be interested in designing a tabletop line.
A plate from Rapinoe’s Aura collection for Felt + Fat.
«I’d been using his mugs and plates in Seattle for several years,» Rapinoe says. «The quality is great. I said, yes, we should do something, but I don’t think either of us thought it would happen.»
Then last year, Rapinoe, who retired from soccer in 2023, and her fiancé Sue Bird moved to New York City and worked with Elle Decor A-List interior designer Mark Grattan to design their apartment, which was on the September 2023 cover of Elle Decor. The soccer icon enjoyed the process—and the results—and realized she had caught the decor bug. «It felt like our first grown-up house,» she says. «I just loved it and learned so much.»
In her personal style, both on the field and off the field, Rapinoe is known for her design choices—from the clothes she wears to her pastel hairstyles. That sense of color found its way into her home, from the violet stairwell to her sage bedroom. «We have open shelving in the kitchen and I thought: why do plain plates?» she says. «I wanted something a bit different that would fit into a house with a dynamic palette.»
At home in New York City, Rapinoe makes takeout look chicer with her new tableware collection.
Mell invited her to Philadelphia to experiment with glazes and colors. They came up with the Aura collection, which uses an airbrush technique to create a spray-paint effect, and is available in two color ways—Zephyr, a pink, blue and grey effect, and Ember, in orange, ocher, and yellow, both on a white porcelain ground.
In an interview, Rapinoe down-played her decor talents («I’m not particularly talented at design,» she said with a laugh) but she didn’t think her foray into homewares was completely far-fetched. «Design is an expression of something you are feeling inside,» she says, «and I was definitely a player who liked to be expressive and wanted to have my own look and style. It might be a stretch but I always did wish I was an artist. Maybe I was an artist on the field, but certainly not off it. This was a way to play and act like I was one.»
Rapinoe at Felt + Fat’s ceramics studio in Philadelphia.
In between recording episodes for A Touch More: The Podcast, her podcast with Bird about women’s sports and culture, Rapinoe says she loves to entertain and plans to use her new collection this summer at the barbecues she loves to host for friends. She uses her vases to create flower arrangements. «I do like it,» she says. «I have thought about getting involved with some pottery classes.»
Ingrid Abramovitch, the Executive Editor at ELLE Decor, writes about design, architecture, renovation, and lifestyle, and is the author of several books on design including Restoring a House in the City.
