April in Milan means design week. Every willing gallery space, wisteria-drenched palazzo, 15th-century church and disused warehouse is seemingly consumed by a cacophony of new chairs, sofas, cabinets, beds, carpets or “design objects” (as they have so esoterically been classed). Over 343,000 journalists, designers and brands from around the world turn up ready to scour for trends, show their wares and – perhaps most importantly – guzzle prosecco and network. It's very hard to get a taxi, and even harder to find an affordable hotel room.
What shines amongst the chaos, quite literally, is lighting. Both throughout the city and in four halls of the monstrous Fiera Milano on Milan's outskirts, lighting designers contribute some of the most interesting work on display.
And what sets lighting apart from the world of chairs, say, is its ability to pair functionality with a sense of sculpture in a far more digestible way to consumers. Meaning: the every person can get away with something a little more radical than perhaps they'd normally go for – a bit more gilt or marble or colour, when such introductions on a piece of furniture would be imprudent. (For example, I am personally obsessed with Tobia Scarpa’s Biagio table lamp produced for Flos; designed in 1968, it gives off an “Alien” vibe and is, with great difficulty, carved from a single block of Carrara marble. Made to order. Drool.)
These are designers at the top of their game, producing some of the best lamps on the scene. The downside of this being that when these products make their way into showrooms and shops, they come at a price. So, without further ado: here's to a bit of design daydreaming with a selection of six of the most luminous launches from Milan design week – even if there's absolutely no way we could afford (most of) them.
Ross Gardam – “Polar” table lamp
£425-£460
Australian Ross Gardam combines traditional materials and production methods with some ingenious technical solutions to create lighting that is totally worth your time: simple, but with a certain flair of originality.
The Polar table lamp, like all of his studio’s work, is designed and produced in Melbourne. It’s a handcrafted ceramic base paired with an aluminium disc shade, attached to the base by means of an strong, molded-in magnet. The disc rotates, so light can be directly where you’d like, and actually manages to give Polar a bit of a chameleonic quality. Viewing it from different sides or changing the disc’s position can give you a handful of different looks.
The base is unglazed, so has a texture quite unusual for lamps made today; and the disc is available in white, midnight blue, a dusty pink and – get ready – a mirrored acrylic gold. Bling!
Formafantasma – “WireRing” wall lamp, for Flos
In production later this year, price tbc
The Amsterdam-based, Italian design duo Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Formfantasma have created a pair of lamps for lighting mega-brand Flos. One refracts a vertical rainbow of light, the other, WireRing, flips the script on the unsightliness of electrical cords and essentially creates a lamp that looks as if nothing but.
A flattened cord attaches to a loop that splashes a bit of light onto the wall thanks to a strip of LEDs on the inner side. By stripping it back to what appears to be one single component, WireRing is deliciously minimalistic, but playful too.
Available in white, grey or pink. So much pink these days.
Michael Anastassiades – “Mobile Chandelier 13”
£13, 500
The toast of the lighting world (or maybe my lighting world), London-based Michael Anastassiades rarely – if ever – takes a wrong turn. His is work that will no doubt age with grace, or at the very least serve as an elegant and sophisticated marker of current taste. Some of his work has already been anointed with the term “instant classic”.
His style is often defined by a charming play in balance, and perhaps no more is this the case than for his Mobile Chandelier series (which, if I had the air space at home, I’d truly lust after). At this year’s Euroluce, a biannual lighting fair that is part of design week, Anastassiades added another three to the series (as well over a dozen other designs) – including lucky #13, shown. As per, it’s a curved black patinated brass with round, blown milk-glass bulbs.
Faye Toogood – “Puffball” table lamp for Matter Made
Price tbc
Self-taught British designer Faye Toogood has, this year, produced her first full lighting collection. Designed for New York brand Matter Made, the Puffball series draws inspiration from the rounded caps of wild mushrooms and their stubby stalks. The floor lamp is quite sizeable, so let’s opt for the table version – but all feature a raw fibreglass shade, which is the charmer, emitting a gloriously lush glow when turned on (don’t we all?).
Toogood is a multidisciplinary gem of a designer, successfully applying her editorial, discerning eye towards fashion, furniture, textiles, wallpaper, sculpture, and so on and so forth. And Matter Made makes for an excellent pairing, sharing her sense of refined, minimal and expertly crafted products.
Davide Groppi – “Tetatet Flûte”
£300
Davide Groppi is a fan of Caravaggio, and so he inevitably appreciates how light can create intimacy through a strong contrast of light and dark. Tenebrism, it’s called in the art world – word of the day. All this to say that he pays a lot more attention to the actual light thrown by his lamps than most others: they set the scene, not simply illuminate.
Groppi added a handful of new designs to his collection this year, ranging from task lighting to pendant lighting and – my favourite – a new version of his successful Tetatet table lamp. This time he’s given it a glass stem. Tetatet sits on a small metal pad, held there by a strong magnet (so is in fact transferable to other metal surfaces, like a shelf), and is powered by a rechargeable lithium battery, so no wires. The result is that its shade, a hockey puck sized black disc, appears to almost float above the table.
Jenkins & Uhnger – “Tangent” floor lamp
At prototype stage, price tbc
As part of a primo selection of work by young Norwegian talent shown during Milan design week, Sverre Uhnger teamed up with British-born, Oslo-based designer Thomas Jenkins for the Tangent floor lamp.
This, their first lighting project, is graphic and geometric. The arm can be moved up and down and also rotated, giving you quite a lot of options, really – whether for tasks or lighting an entire room. Also, it’s dimmable, which we love.
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