Ana Kraš Builds a World of Her Own

There is one specialized university for art education in Serbia, The University of Arts in Belgrade. The school is known for its diverse and technical mediums, small class size, and competitive admissions process that includes an intensive six-day exam. High school students typically go through rigorous preparations for the test, studying precisely for the mediums they aim to study.

Except for Ana Kras.

Ana came across a department listed as Interior Architecture and Furniture Design, thought, “How fun, furniture!” and applied on a whim. She figured she would bomb the test, but it would prepare her to take it more seriously the following year.

When Ana sat down for the exam she watched as other students pulled out a series of architectural tools: compasses, parallel rulers—all things she had never touched before.

“I remember thinking, ‘Should I just leave?’” she tells me as we chat over chicory root tea in her Parisian home. Instead Ana improvised the entire series of exams, doing freehand perspective drawings of imaginative spaces and furniture. To her surprise, she was accepted into the program, marking the beginning of her formal design career.

Ana grew up in Serbia and was the first in her family to attend design school. Her path into the world of art and design was shaped by the lives of her parents, who were both resourceful in their own way. Ana’s mother had once aspired to go to art school, dreaming of drawing and painting, but the family’s financial limitations pushed that dream aside. Her father harbored a talent for design, though he never practiced professionally. Still, he found ways to express his creativity.

“He wasn’t formally trained but he was an engineer, so he had all the technical knowledge,” Ana says, hinting at the origin of her own meticulous skills. “He could make perfect technical drawings even though he never studied architecture.”

The University of Arts offered Ana a strong foundation in hand drafting and technical drawing, but the resources available at the time were limited due to the country’s situation following the war. Computers were scarce, forcing students to rely on traditional techniques while the rest of world was quickly moving toward digital tools.

Ana taught herself to use a computer for design competitions and architectural interior contests, but her understanding of design was deeply rooted in manual processes. “There’s a certain logic that gets instilled when you do things manually,” Ana says, noting that these early challenges shaped her perspective.

Ana’s career had a major trajectory change after winning a student competition that took her work to Salone del Mobile via its now legendary SaloneSatellite program. Her designs attracted global attention. “It was crazy to see the actual design industry that I had no clue about while studying in Belgrade,” she says.

Salone’s early exposure to the global design scene brought her new opportunities, like having her lamp designs featured in Martin Margiela’s Design hotel in Paris—a surreal moment given her admiration for Martin while growing up in the ‘90s. Shortly afterward, people began placing furniture orders in large quantities—though Ana, who was 23 at the time, was still making everything by hand.

Ana continued to live in Serbia, taking photos and sharing them on Flickr, doing graphic design, illustration, making custom lamps, and taking odd jobs. After saving some money from a few lucrative photography gigs, she flew to LA to visit a friend. While there, she picked up more freelance photography work and, through one of those gigs, stumbled into a relationship with the musician Devendra Banhart.

Wanting to avoid the scrutiny that comes with a celebrity relationship, when Ana joined Instagram she chose a random word as a handle for privacy—“teget,” the Serbian word for her mother’s favorite color, navy blue.

The couple eventually moved to New York, and while the relationship did not last, Ana remained there for nearly a decade. During that time, she deepened her exploration of design, photography, and creative direction. In 2015, The New York Times coined her the “design star of the moment.”

Despite her growing success in the city, when COVID hit, the chaos and the distance from her family drove her to make a change. With an understated fearlessness (she speaks no French) she moved to Paris. “I craved a more nurturing and calm environment,” she says. “Paris felt like the right balance.”

If you imagine a classic Parisian apartment, it likely closely resembles Ana’s place. A coded gate opens to a simple courtyard, a carpeted spiral staircase, a small working elevator (complete with ashtray), and leads to a heavy wooden door.

Ana’s home is immaculate, minimal, and carefully outfitted with her own creations: wall lamps, sofa covers, stools, chairs, and table lamps. The sheer drapes she designed filter light and the beautiful views of her neighborhood. What would typically be a dining room is setup as an office, where Ana admits she spends most of her hours. A hallway leads to a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a single bedroom carefully wrapped in drapery that hides her stored wardrobe—much of which she designed or collected from around the world.

When Ana met her current partner, Ruben Moreira, the pieces of her studio began to fall into place. He encouraged Ana to pursue her own brand, recognizing that continuing to work solely for clients wouldn’t fulfill her long-term creative goals.

“I wouldn’t have the drive for it unless I was fully invested,” Ana says, describing her thoughtful approach to launching something new. Ruben’s support, along with their complementary skill sets—Ruben is very good at everything she’s not, according to her—gave Ana the push she needed to develop her brand. The name? It already existed as her Instagram handle: Teget.

Formally launched earlier this year, Teget is a brand that blends fashion, homeware, and design, creating objects that feel as personal as the clothes we wear. Ana’s career, which uniquely combines design, photography, and creative direction, now finds a unified outlet in Teget, allowing her to express her multidisciplinary talents under one cohesive vision.

The brand’s first collection, Static Noise, is a collaborative exploration of objects ranging from sunglasses to furniture. The collection showcases Ana’s distinct approach to design. “The core idea behind Teget is to treat space the way we treat our bodies when we dress up,” Ana says.

The brand’s philosophy is rooted in the idea that home décor should feel as dynamic and changeable as our wardrobes. Ana aims to break the disconnect between how we style ourselves and our homes, creating products that make it easy to express personal style within a living space.

One of the standout pieces from Teget’s initial drop was a sofa cover—a product that reflects Ana’s lifelong habit of wrapping her own sofas to refresh her space. “It was always my favorite thing,” she says, describing how she would change her sofa’s cover whenever she wanted to update the room’s vibe.

Though people initially thought the idea was strange, many customers have embraced the concept. Blending practical design with personal expression is at the heart of Teget’s ethos, and it’s what excites Ana most about the brand’s future.

As Teget continues to grow, Ana is committed to keeping the brand’s output thoughtful and intentional. “Our plan is to release a new theme and collection once a year while continuing with core items we feel make sense for the brand,” she says. This deliberate pace allows Ana to maintain creative control and stay true to her vision without the pressures of external investors. It’s a brand built on her own terms—one that reflects her unique perspective as a designer, photographer, and creative director.

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