What Is It That Makes Italian Lighting Design So Special??

Made In Italy.
The tag line 'Made In Italy' can add hundreds or even thousands of pounds to a ticket price, but why and how did it come to be that Italians now dominate the world of fashionable design?


There is no doubt that Italian lighting designers behold something special. There is a certain magic that happens when Italian lighting designers put pen to paper that no other nation in the world has managed to capture. All rulers are thrown away and the right angle is banished, it is the curve that rules supreme in Italian lighting design.


This inherent appreciation for aesthetics can be seen not only in lighting and furniture design but is famously visible throughout Italian manufacture, most notably the motor and clothing industries. Brands like Ferrari, Armani, Bugatti, Valentino, Maserati, Versace, Lamborghini to name but a few, have evoked feelings of desire in the hearts of consumers for generations. With regard to Italian lighting, brands such as MM Lampadari, IDL, Lampe, Masca, Giorgione have also captured these feelings and forced the hearts of many a lighting buyer, to skip a beat.
But Why Italy??

The renaissance is commonly believed to have begun in Florence in the 14th Century. A collaboration of great minds, Medici money and a new shape of political and social structure allowed for a cultural step forward that had the rest of Europe following closely behind. This is where the Italian love for design began. Heroic figures such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo showed that art, design, engineering and construction can all be combined with wonderful results. It is a bit much of course to compare the statue of David to the work of Italian lighting designers today but what we can see in Italian lighting design today is the same sense of pride in workmanship.


This exuberant pride in design was born over 500 hundred years ago but continues today in every aspect of Italian lighting design.