Changing the lighting in any room can have the greatest transformative effect on the home. I recently picked up a couple of table lamps at Sunbury Antiques Market, Kempton Park, so I was looking to find large bold floral or patterned material lampshades in traditional prints.
During my search, and via further browsing at other current favourites: Oka, Designers Guild, Liberty London, Peter Jones and House of Hackney - I made a discovery.
Pooky is a British company specialising in creating beautiful, decorative table lamps, bedside lights, pendants, wall lights and lampshades - and doesn’t cost a fortune. Last year they added mirrors to the range.
Founded by Rohan Blacker, the brains behind sofa.com, he says that Pooky is the business he has always wanted to do. Having always loved good lighting, he wondered for many years if he could add a lighting category to Sofa.com, but realised it was important to keep Sofa.com 100% sofa specialists.
Now he is creating that same specialism with Pooky, who see Lampshades as the lighting world’s equivalent of a beautiful silk print scarf or tie. They want us to use them boldly to bring splashes of colour into our home or office.
The straight forward website makes it really simple to browse the available sizes in each lampshade. And there is a stunning range of hand-loomed silk ikats, Belgian linens, Rajasthani silks, block-printed cottons, and card. Paired together cleverly with lamp bases in endless configurations of antique brass and nickel, glass, resin, wood and ceramic in every conceivable shape.
The Pooky design team works with manufacturers around the world, and is forever adding new well-designed products and characterful lighting and shades. I love the Murano style glass Table Lamps and the coloured glass Pendant Lights that are mouth-blown and hand-finished with thousands of tiny bubbles. Perfect to hang in a row above a kitchen island or dining table.
And my winners? Well-designed, and in beautiful coloured patterns, the chosen shades for my new table lamps was a simple decision. Block-printed by hand by skilled craftspeople in a workshop near Jaipur using ancient dyeing techniques, these soft cotton Gathered Lampshades in greens and blues are my favourite. I am also very tempted by the Velvet shades in Emerald and Beryl.
If like me, you shop better for homeware face to face with the product, Pooky also have showrooms to visit in Chelsea and Gloucestershire.
March 2018