What Inspires Todd Sawvelle
“Like just about every lighting designer will tell you, inspiration is everywhere,” says designer Todd Sawvelle, founder of the new lamp company Couture. “We probably drive people we know crazy in the places that we find inspiration (and how we make them stop while we take it in)! My camera is always with me and when I download images, I am amazed that I can take 40 pictures of one metal finial on an iron gate in Paris – but apparently something about it inspired me at the moment,” he explains. “I later reinterpreted this iron finial as a lamp that has become one of my best sellers of the year. In particular I am attracted to architectural elements, such as fragments and details from old buildings.”
Sawvelle jokes that he has “too many strange inspirations” to list. “Lighting people always think every object would make a terrific light,” he quips. “Probably the strangest inspiration I’ve had are these terrific sculptural bike racks placed in the park near my house in downtown Memphis. They were installed this past summer and from the first time I saw them I thought that they were wonderfully organic forms that could be recreated as lamps!”
