Ed from Swank, one of our sponsors, emailed us with the following exciting news:
"In the short three years we have been in business we have sold hundreds of Vintage Murano Lamps from the finest glass houses in Venice. These lamps were imported by BALBOA in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. The response to our re-introduction of the remaining inventory of BALBOA has been phenomenal. One thing we have heard over and over from Designers and Collectors is that the look is fantastic and although our prices are lower than the high-end showrooms in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, etc. they still require an investment out of reach of many people. To address these concerns we set out to create a line of blown glass lamps with the same hot mid-century look, in a price range within reach of many more admirers. We first looked into having the glass components blown in Italy and importing them. Although there remains many wonderful glass artisans on the island of Murano, the cost to have the glass blown there and shipped to the U.S. was still too high to fit our model. Further much of what is being blown in Murano today is not the same high quality it was in the 20th Century and is more geared to the tourist "souvenir" market. So, we decided that we should really focus our efforts on promoting the beautiful work done by American glass artisans. In our search for the best America has to offer we found Joe Cariati. Joe's work is absolutely incredible. He sells his decorative pieces at some of the finest store including Barneys, Gumps, Belvedere, and Haven. You can see his collection online at www.joecariati.com. We contracted with Joe to blow the inaugural offerings in the new American Blown Glass Lamps from www.swanklighting.com. We are calling this line Hard Candy. The full line will be launched in September and priced around $800 per lamp. Unlike with our vintage line, we will sell singles as well as pairs of Hard Candy."
