WHAT IS LIGHTOVATION?

Lightovation at Dallas Market is North America’s largest residential wholesale lighting tradeshow with over 1 million square feet of lighting covering 2 floors of the TradeMart building at Dallas Market Center. It takes place 2x a year, January and June, and attracts many thousands of attendees and exhibitors from across the world.

WHO’S THE WOMAN IN THE IMAGE BELOW?

She’s Laura Van Zeyl, Vice President of Marketing for Lightovation. I’ve known Laura now for almost 20 years, when she was still editor in chief of Residential Lighting Magazine, and I am so blessed by our friendship.

She’s an amazingly organized and effective executive who has been instrumental in many aspects of the success of this tradeshow, including leasing space to new lighting exhibitors, attracting new attendees, setting up major marketing initiatives, serving as a volunteer committee member or on the board of lighting industry organizations, and helping to raise over 12 million dollars for original cancer research by volunteering on the board of the lighting industry’s major philanthropic initiative, The H Foundation’s Goombay Bash fundraiser.

READY TO SEE MY FAVORITE LIGHTING DESIGNS?

I didn’t group these in any particular order, and I didn’t get to visit every exhibitor’s showroom, but here’s what I loved that I did get to see.

[ NOTE: Click the image to go to YouTube to see the video in each image ] .

All of the lighting fixtures in this image are from MINKA, [owned now by Ferguson Enterprises ] whose President, Tim Flannery, [shown in the image below ] has been a long time supporter/mentor/friend to me.

I was really impressed by the variety of materials Minka is now using in its lighting fixtures: rope, alabaster, coconut shells, Murano glass, crystal, pearl, rattan, metal, etc. and appreciated Tim giving me the grand tour of his showroom after a long day.

Minka also works with my good friend, Robin Baron, on her licensed lighting collection for them - which I wrote about here, when I was hired by Minka to help them launch Robin’s collection. The fixture in this image below, on the upper right, is a new one of Robin’s for Minka called Batignolles.

Next January, Minka is launching a new collection with interior designer, Dann Foley, which I am looking forward to seeing and Minka is also represented in our Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse installation.

TIP: Minka has the best cappuccino when you’re in need of a lift…

Next are these fixtures, all from Kuzco Lighting. Kuzco is a Canadian company well known for their experimentation in exciting collaborations with well known figures outside of the lighting world.

I wrote about one of those collaborations, here, with jeweller Hanna Jewett, who designed a capsule lighting collection for them using AI.

This time, they partnered with hip hop recording artist and cultural archivist, Sean Brown, on a capsule lighting collection called CURVES. Click the image below to go to You Tube and see Kuzco’s Vice President of Brand, Ashlen Haslam, show it to you.

A strong focus this time for Kuzco was on lighting with a Japanese aesthetic, as evidenced in the two pendant fixtures shown below. They also introduced a new line of rechargeable and dimmable portables, in many different shapes and colors that were all very well made.

One thing I discovered, though, which is something you only know by attending a tradeshow, is that some of these portable were extremely lightweight, and some were heavier. This can be an important consideration if they are are being used in an area where they could easily get knocked over.

They also showed several new configurations of their very popular MARNI crystal lighting fixtures, including these beautiful sconces and their BOWERY pendant, with its very graphic presentation, was a standout.

Kuzco is also represented in our Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse installation.

TIP: Kuzco’s fun Hall Of Mirrors is a very Instagrammable moment. Make sure to visit it while if you go!

The lighting fixtures below are from a variety of manufacturers, three of whom are also featured in our Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse installation.

Those three are wakaNINE [who represents David Trubridge’s sustainable bamboo fixtures with their amazing shadow patterns ], Zafferano, whose frosted white and glass pendant chandelier is shown in the image below and Maxim Lighting, whose flower like fixture graced their window display this time.

Maxim also represents the Studio M Line of lighting, which showcases the work of several licensees including Houston’s Nina Magon and Mat Sanders [ who designed Miley Cyrus’s WILD Los Angeles home. ]

The green glass chandelier is by South African designer, Stephen Picus, who is also represented by wakaNINE, and is made out of recycled glass that’s been hand polished and hand wired into these shapes.

One thing I love about this fixture besides the obvious sustainable nature of it, is that the bulbs are placed evenly around the inside perimeter, allowing you to change them out for different colors or use different colors within the same fixture. This fixture is also available in clear or gray glass and in various configurations.

Who’s ready to play?

The gold pendant fixture is from exhibitor, EGLO, and the fiber optic fixture that changes colors as you watch it is from an exhibitor who was in the International Pavillion on TM 4.

Click the image below to go to You Tube and watch it change colors. It’s mesmerizing!

Tip: The International Pavillon is not a physical pavilion but a showroom on TM 4 where several different exhibitors show their designs. It is a must see stop for every attendee interested in the very latest in lighting designs from smaller, trend forward international manufacturers.

Two more exhibitors represented in the Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse are shown in the below image, Hubbardton Forge - whose President, Maria Mullen, received the Women In Lighting’s Leadership Award this time, and also Geo Contemporary, whose owners, Mayra and Mauricio, gifted me with one of the glorious lighted garden planters after the January Lightovation show.

Their modern ceramic lighting fixtures are absolutely beautiful, reasonably priced, and can be custom colored and sized. They are a must see stop on TM 3.

Hubbardton Forge is well known to most designers for their quality and their ability to customize, too. Made out of hand forged iron, they are a genuine Made In The USA [ Vermont ] success story. Many designers don’t know this, but they also make outdoor fixtures [ in white! ] and they can make barstools, etc. Their showroom at Lightovation is set up to maximize showing off the gorgeous shadow patterns cast by their fixtures, as you can see from this image I took of this small hanging pendant.

My good friends, interior designers and retailers, Jeanne K. Chung and Shay Geyer, are both members of HF’s Design Council. Jeanne was here at Lightovation this time, too, and wrote a fabulous wrap up post with her take on the latest in lighting trends which I’ve linked to at the bottom of this post.

Shay, as many of you know, was one of my collaborators on the Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse project - she worked closely with Annilee and chose the decor, finishes and the 21 highlighted lighting fixtures shown within it. Shay is also the the owner of the gorgeous retail store, IBB Design Fine Furnishings in Dallas and is a past winner of the ARTS Award for Retailer Of The Year.

Also in the image below are fixtures from Fine Art Lighting [ upper left ] and Lib & Co, the starbursts, a newer exhibitor owned by a long time friend of mine who used to work for Eurofase until he went out on his own, Tony Vitoli. Lib & Co has quickly become a designer favorite due to their ability to customize and custom color, too.

If you know Juliana Ewer, ask her about Lib & Co.

The vintage shaped pendant in the lower left is another fixture from MINKA, and the fixture on the lower right, in the video, is also from MAXIM Lighting. I loved that shadow pattern.

Click on the image to go to the YouTube video showing that shadow play.

Robin Burrill, CEO and principal designer at Keller, TX based Signature Home Services, attended Lightovation, too. I had a chance to meet up with Robin for lunch one day. Afterwards, we walked over to the Varaluz showroom, where Robin fell in love with these colorful pendants made from recycled steel and I took this pic of her.

It’s so great to see how lighting manufacturers are incorporating sustainability into their designs, and Ron Henderson, the owner of Varaluz, is well known in the industry as being THE manufacturer focused on producing luxury, eco-friendly lighting out of sustainable materials.

I loved how these pendants matched the colorful dress Robin was wearing and Robin fell in love with how the ceiling canopies of these fixtures coordinated with the color of the fixture, itself.

Robin writes a very, very good blog and has her own quarterly magazine. You’ll be seeing Dallas Market and Lightovation through her eyes in some of her upcoming blog posts and in the next issue of her magazine.

I invite you to subscribe to both using the link at the end of this post.

The one manufacturer who was brand new to me this market was Oxygen. I’d never been in their showroom before, and fell in love with this fixture and it’s playful shadow pattern.

Lastly, I want to thank the insanely talented [and NICE! ] photographer, Patrick of @am2pm_images, who took this pic of me, in the Maxim Lighting showroom, in front of one of Nina Magon’s fixtures for their Studio M Lighting division.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post… and don’t forget to click the links to read Jeanne’s TREND post, and to subscribe to Robin’s blog and magazine, underneath this image.

Leslie Carothers, Principal
Savour Partnership - a digital marketing agency for home related brands, tradeshows and interior designers

Named One Of Home Furnishing News Magazine’s Top 40 Most Inspiring Women In Home

Instagram / Linked In

__________________________

Consultant and Project Manager: Metaverse Lighting Trendhouse installation for Dallas Market Center’s Lightovation tradeshow .

If you didn’t see it, visit it on this permalink [ no email required ] https://www.dallasmarketcenter.com/metaverse-lighting-trendhouse

See Jeanne’s Lighting Trends Shine At Lightovation post, here.
Subscribe to Robin’s blog and magazine, here.