Contemporary Craft: Flora Lighting Collection by In Common With and Sophie Lou Jacobsen.

Flora Chandelier. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Calla Portable Table Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Calla Floor Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Fazzo Pendant. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Flora Fio Sconce. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Calla Sconce. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Brooklyn-based lighting studio In Common With have launched Flora, a new lighting collection designed in collaboration with French-American designer Sophie Lou Jacobsen. Exploring Italian design influences, Flora is informed by traditional Venetian glass manufacturing techniques, 20th-century Murano glassware, and the decorative objects made by architects like Carlo Scarpa and Ettore Sottsass. In Common With’s Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung have teamed up with Jacobsen to create a 20-piece collection that is at once contemporary and deeply rooted in craft.

Ozemba and Hung first approached Jacobsen, known for her eponymous line of objects in multicoloured borosilicate glass, in 2020. Together they have been experimenting with a range of glassblowing techniques to realise Flora and its exuberant, floral-inspired forms and organic ornamental motifs.

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Large Fazzo Table Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Large Gemma Pendant. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Gemma Floor Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Vera Sconce. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Large Fazzo Table Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

“We have admired Sophie’s work for several years, and her unique approach to glass, from her playful forms to her joyful use of colour, brought a totally new perspective to our work,” says Ozemba. “It’s been so rewarding to realise this collection, marrying her aesthetic with our more classic and minimal approach to create an entirely new design language. This is our most expressive design work to date.”

The series of lights have been made using a process called Fazzoletto (Italian for ‘handkerchief’), made famous by Paolo Venini. Using gravity by spinning molten glass downward to create an undulating, wave-like shape, it also recalls a flower called Angel’s Trumpet, which gives the collection its botanical name. Venini’s process became incredibly influential in making the collection: grounded in the tradition of Venetian glassmaking, his work also embraced modernism and a spirit of collaboration, including a decade-long creative partnership with architect and designer Carlo Scarpa.

Other pieces are a modern take on a 17th-century ornamental technique employed by the most skilled artisans. Traditionally, glass artists would add small pieces of molten glass to a blown form and manipulate them with hand tools into decorative shapes. In Common With and Jacobsen’s interpretation is a tribute to this highly technical method but has been adorned with simple geometric forms: a repeating dot and fin.

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Medium Gemma Pendant. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Portrait of In Common With’s Nick Ozemba and Felicia Hung and Sophie Lou Jacobsen. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Large Fazzo Table Lamp. Photo by William Jess Laird.

Gemma Sconce. Photo by William Jess Laird.

For Jacobsen, the collection marks her first foray into the world of lighting design, although it’s just too good it’s almost hard to believe. “It’s incredibly exciting to experiment with lighting for the first time. I have always been interested in exploring everyday objects that have the innate ability to surprise and delight,” she elaborates. “Flora perfectly embodies that spirit while moving my practice into new scales and directions.”

Combining hand-blown, mould-blown, and slumped glass forms, Flora comprises a family of fixtures including a pendant, sconce, table and floor lamps, and the studio’s first-ever chandelier. The collection is available in a palette of vibrant hues and pastels in an array of colour combinations, paired with hand-patinated brass hardware.

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[Images courtesy of In Common With. Photography by William Jess Laird and In Common With.]