Pioneers of industrial lighting, Urban Cottage Industries set up in 2007, salvaging historic lighting from Yorkshire mills. In more recent times the company has been establishing its Factorylux lighting brand which is made entirely in the UK and brings heritage and industrial lighting to your home or interior space.
As a home interiors enthusiast with a penchant for industrial lighting, I was excited to learn that the company has recently set up a retail pop-up lighting experience, where you can design your very own cool Factorylux light.
Book an appointment with #TheVan and you get an expert one-to-one session to help you choose the shade, flex and all the fittings to create a stunning, unique light that will grace your home. Located at Brick Lane, the pop up is mobile and has already been to Edinburgh and Bournemouth, but is scheduled to remain in London until the end of the year.
If you can’t get to the van to create your piece of original lighting, with the ‘Made For You’ configurator on the website you can still ‘build’ your light from scratch; something I was lucky enough to try out recently.
I designed my light starting with the beautiful Bletchley Park shade, an exact reproduction of the original glass shades that were installed at Bletchley Park, where the British codebreakers worked in World War II. In fact, these shades were actually recreated for the restoration of Bletchley Park and you can see them in the huts where the Enigma cyphers were cracked. Here is Urban Cottage Industries founder, Sophie Gollup, holding one of the amazing Bletchley Park lamps.
You can buy the shade by itself if fitting to an existing pendant, or order the complete light fitting, which is what I did.
To the Bletchley shade, I added the various components required to make my light up, in the finishes and colours I liked best. I chose a bronze finished lamp holder and ceiling rose, then selected coloured cable from the huge choice on offer; I went for a bright fuschia pink fabric cable to give the traditional opaque glass shade a modern twist.
A pear shaped vintage style filament bulb would finish the look.
When you’re happy with your design, simply place the order online and the light is then made up for you at the factory in Yorkshire, to your specifications, and tested and certified to BS EN 60598, before being sent out to you on a next working day delivery. So exciting!
You can also choose simple pendant lights for a bare bulb or a shade from another supplier. Prices range from £35 – £300 per light, depending on individual designs and materials selected and #TheVan will be parked up at the Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane (opposite café 1001) for the timebeing.
With thanks to Urban Cottage Industries for the gifted light; all words and opinions are genuine and my own
