Page 51 - enLIGHTenment December 2016
P. 51
New Horizons
Hubbardton Forge
has won design awards
for its signature
hand-forged styles,
but next month at
Lightovation the
domestic manufacturer
will unveil two new
brands that defy all
preconceived notions
of what to expect.
BY LINDA LONGO
T
he mo o “Don’t mess with success”
does not apply to the design team at
Castleton, Vt.-based lighting manu-
facturer Hubbardton Forge. While the
sudden emergence of two completely
new “from scratch” divisions might seem out of the
blue to customers, their development was far from
impulsive.
“For the past 10 years, Hubbardton Forge’s prod-
uct line has been evolving as we brought in di erent
materials and a more contemporary aesthetic, but
we still kept true to the brand,” explains David Ki s,
the company’s long-time Design Director. For the
last 18 months, the design team has been mulling
over ideas and formulating prototypes for what
would become two distinct style departures. With
all the secrecy of a political cover-up, the company
managed to keep any inkling of big news from in-
The Hubbardton Forge
dustry guests to the factory — even going as far as
design team were to literally hide the models in progress under wraps
delighted to discover
these unusually shaped from anyone not intrinsically involved.
(and rarely used
“It took us a couple of years for the designers to
in lighting) crystals go in the [style] directions that we knew we wanted
available from Swarovski.
to go into,” Ki s notes. Aware that many consumers
o en out ed their entire homes in Hubbardton
DeceMber 2016 | enLIGHTenment Magazine 49