AS A CHILD in the bohemian 1970s, Melissa Rufty was oblivious to the rattan, straw and bamboo that warmed up Jackie O’s and Candice Bergen’s chic Manhattan apartments in Vogue pictorials. What did make an impression on the New Orleans designer: the basketwork vases her mother used around the house, and later filled with garden roses to place by Ms. Rufty’s bedside as a welcome home from college.
More recently, Ms. Rufty began collecting the handcrafted vessels herself, drawn by the intricately plaited strips of tawny bamboo...