When it comes to new eclectic style lighting, Gabby creates hundreds of new designs each year. Many new introductions debut at each market in Atlanta, High Point, Dallas, and Las Vegas. At our corporate headquarters in Pelham, Alabama the Gabby industrial design studio is a virtual laboratory for creative furniture and lighting design, complete with an ever expanding library of unique materials. The design team implements customer surveys and systematic methodology to creatively segment and understand the markets for the products we offer and what we should develop.
Unique Materials
Unique materials inspire us, but when they combine with other materials in chic contrast, the visual message becomes something new and compelling. Now place that piece in the context of a room so that it can speak with other pieces and the interior designer’s visual essay ensues to delight their customers. Gabby aims to bring fabulous combinations of unique materials in interesting pieces that don’t overpower. These pieces are transitional in understated elegance, yet eclectic in material choice. Let’s review Gabby’s lighting line segmented by unique materials.
Carved alabaster stone
Alabaster is a common name for calcite, a carbonate of calcium, also known as onyx-marble. This material has been used throughout history by many cultures, notably ancient Egypt and Asian countries in jewelry and sculpture. The material became popularized in Western Europe and the United States as travel and importation of goods became more commonplace. Gabby’s products feature this material carved into different shapes. From left to right: alabaster is carved into a sphere in the Corinne Lamp, square tiles in the Bennie Lamp, tiled blocks in the Geneva Lamp, a bold chess pawn in the Nora Lamp, and a cylinder in the Merry Lamp.
Faux shagreen
Shagreen is a type of untanned leather with a textured granulated surface of pointed scales made from shark or stingray skin. The material became most popular from the early 1900’s to the 1930’s in European art deco furnishings, appearing on precious home decor items like jewelry boxes and luxury case goods. Gabby showcases the unique material by casting it in resin with a realistic faux finishing. In the Dixon Lamp, Gabby showcases the warm, bumpy and variegated shagreen with complementary metal that is hand antiqued in a textured mottled golden brown finish. Gabby contrasts the dull and textural rustic skin with a shiny and smooth aged copper in the Coffield Lamp.
Layered Finishes
Distressed finishes showing multiple layers are a signature of Gabby’s antique style designs. Our design team uses these finishes (from left to right) in both subtle variation as in the Boswell Lamp and Cornelius Lantern to high contrast applications as in the Jenny Lantern and Newberry Pendant Chandelier.
We can see the use of subtle differences in layered finishes showcased in a series of antique style designs that were inspired by Gabby’s Katrina Chandelier. See Katrina’s same cool contrasting silvery grey and dappled cream finish in the larger Josephine, a more monochromatic distressed brown and grey finish on the Vincent Chandelier, and a warm rusty black and natural wood on Rosetta.
Antiqued gold leaf
Gabby’s corporate brand color is a metallic gold. We employ numerous variations of gold leaf finishes in our eclectic lighting lineup, but each has a unique design element or story behind it. Below you can see a sample of the many explorations in gold finishes from gold leaf to distressed hand brushing, to mottled faux finish, to satin champagne color fields. In order from left to right, see the Belfast Sconce with lucite and linen, the Comet Table Lamp with alabaster and hexagonal metal shade, the simply sophisticated all metal Maureen Sconce, the 1920’s style Allen Chandelier, the deco style Aurora Table Lamp with black lucite, the Callie Lamp with hand hammered details, the Corinna Chandelier with natural shell inlay, the George Lamp with layered gold finishes, the Rebecca Floor Lamp in antique gold and the Clay Chandelier with contrasting chipped white finish.
Antique brass
Gabby features some of our more contemporary silhouettes in a variety of plated antique brass finishes. This includes the the Butler Shade Pendant with shiny antique brass, the glass and matt brass Sharon Pendant, the darker matt finished brass Large Athena Chandelier, and the Whitford Lamp with its turned horn shape of dark matt luster brass enclosed in a glass globe.
Wooden beads
Beads have the connotation of being special, feeling delicate with their natural draping and pointillist shadow-play. This year Gabby introduced several beaded chandeliers in various scales to delight our customers. See how the Sandra (first) drapes a curtain of white painted beads under a crown of gold, or how the Etienne (last) tiers three curtains of beads like an upside down wedding cake.
Faux horn & bone
Eclectic and eye catching in both the wild outdoors and the living room, horn and bone are natural materials seen used in ancient artifacts for tools, jewelry and home decor. Gabby re-envisions these materials in a more friendly cast resin that is cut into mosaic tiles for use in our furniture and lighting. See (left to right) how we use white horn in the Lynden and Hatton Lamps, and then see the dramatic change a dark horn coloration can make to the same form in Harriet. Then see how clean the thin cut slivers of white bone look in the Barnsley Lamp.
Concrete
Concrete has a utilitarian industrial style visual appeal. This catalyzation of liquid to solid makes the possibilities only limited by the mold from which the material is cast. See below how the concrete takes the shape of a flower in the Gosselin Lamp, a geodesic sphere in the Jordan Lamp and a cone in the Culver Lamp. In all three examples the concrete’s industrial style is not contrasted but emphasized in complementary metal, black iron and antique brass respectively.
Lucite
Lucite is Poly(methyl methacrylate), but better known as Plexiglas and Clear Acrylic. This transparent, durable, and flexible material became fashionably modern in the 1950’s in both jewelry and home decor. It divides space while keeping the view. More subtly, we can appreciate how it gently refracts light, and being a non-conductor, always feels neither cold nor hot. See it contrasted with distressed gold in the Toulouse Lamp, Rosa Chandelier, and Dalene Table Lamp.
Each market offer more eclectic lighting designs…
At each market, Gabby’s design lab showcases their design explorations in form, finish, and feel. While our chic contrast creations may occasionally strive to titillate the mind, moreover they are simply meant to be enjoyed. Come to our Gabby showrooms and see how we use them in context. Our master merchandisers mix Gabby transitional furniture and lighting with antiques and unique finds from across the globe to create an eclectic environment similar to how our customers design their own spaces. With each and every market the showroom changes. Come see what’s new!
Gabby Atlanta Showroom | AmericasMart, #15-E24 (open daily Mon-Fri, 10am-4pm)
AmericasMart Building 1, 1, 240 Peachtree Street Northwest #15-E24 Atlanta, GA 30303
Manager: Kayte Granick <KayteG@gabbyhome.com> (410) 236-3171
Gabby High Point Showroom view on Google+ | IHFC, W168
200 International Home Furnishings Center, W168 | E. Commerce Ave. | High Point, NC 27260
Gabby Las Vegas Showroom | World Market Center, B-316
Building B, Space B-316 | 495 S. Grand Central Pkwy. | Las Vegas, NV 89106
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