Anastassiades’ Artisanal Modern Lighting

The idea of artisanal lighting may bring to mind a single person studio making sophomoric fixtures for the uninitiated. This can be further from the truth when it comes to the lighting by Cypriot Michael Anastassiades. For instance, when Ralph Pucci, tastemaker and proprietor of the cutting edge furniture gallery that bears his name, chooses a designer to exhibit in his New York and Los Angeles showrooms, people are bound to take notice. And when that designer is Anastassiades who has worked with Paris silversmiths Puiforcat, German porcelain maker Rosenthal and Austrian bedazzeler to the stars, Swarovski, its time for all of us to pay attention.

Based in London, Anastassiades is a wizard with lighting, producing pendant lighting and table lamps that are unlike anything you’ve seen before. He is obsessed with form and function, reducing each piece to just the bare essentials with results that are closer to contemporary artwork than to Edison’s original light bulb. He chooses his materials carefully for quality to ensure that the end results are immaculate lights which look as good off as they do glowing at night. I am a proponent of that same philosophy that great materials help to create timeless pieces that transcend today’s parade of fashions and help to ensure that the object will continue to look fabulous for years to come.

What I like most about Anastassiades’ contemporary lighting is the playful nature that he captures in each piece. An orb of light balances on the edge of a circular brass stand (top image); another seems caught on a fishhook (second image). His pendants of three glowing incandescent bars of light (above) would be super cool and an unexpected addition to a huge industrial loft where they could really command the space with their stylish simplicity.

And for those looking for something unusual, but a little more refined, his ball lights (above) look stunning grouped together as a composition in an entry hall, or they also come as wall brackets and could line a long hallway. And his long elegant pendant of mirrored glass (below) adds great verticality to a tall narrow hall. Artisanal lighting has never looked so modern.

In a nod to the way things used to be done, Anastassiades has created a network of workshops that help to bring his creations to life. This gives him complete control of quality and really does allow for topnotch craftsmanship in his artisanal lighting. And for someone who signs off on every piece he makes, quality is clearly at the top of his list of priorities.