It’s chic expensive recycled lamp month! No, it’s really not. We made that up. But it does seem to be a bit of a theme, and the latest players in the expensive recycled lamp drama are made out of leftover bits of haute couture textiles from well-known designers like Missoni. The textiles are crocheted together by a young British designer named Naomi Paul, and even though the finished products are about $2,000 each, which is about $1,900 more than we have to spend on a lamp, they are really quite nice.
Of course we would not be doing our duty as consumers and general policers of artiste B.S. if we did not look into whether Paul talks about these lamps — as some people are wont to do — as if she were the second coming of the Messiah rather than A Person Who Makes Fucking Cool Lamps. Hmm. So far her promotional material looks fairly clean. We like this: “[these lamps] evolved from the desire to create flat pack lighting that is timeless playful and quietly opulent designed sourced and made in the UK.” “Timeless” is a little grandiose, and we’re not sure what to make of the lack of punctuation — is it an attempt to look folksy and public-school-educated, or more of an “I cannot be contained by your puny grammar rules” thing? All in all, though, the pretentious douche factor, relatively speaking, is pretty low.
Paul also makes cool pillows out of the same stuff. We’d like to lie down on one of them and look up at one of her lamps. We think this is a reasonable exchange for not making too much fun of an artist statement.
