Tupperware and a timeless design sensibility were the inspirations behind “Tuppa”, Jordan Fleming’s lighting collection for Objects For Thought (Oft), launching at Melbourne Design Week.
The brief was to craft a functional pendant light that worked cohesively within a space, balancing form with material. And Fleming’s design delivered. “With this piece, I originally started with an artist whose photography I was looking at, and they were playing with light shining through the layers of Tupperware containers. It brought this multi-layered, slightly tinted translucency. And while this piece has gone very far from the reference, for me, that was the original inspiration,” says Fleming.
For the piece, Fleming and the creative design duo behind Oft, Jay Jermyn and CJ Anderson, fused an inverted shade of milky, hand-blown glass with a solid canopy of spun stainless steel and brass. “There’s this milky, opal-like glass, a throwback to Murano which really anchors the piece,” says Jermyn. Fleming adds, “it achieves this gradient or halo effect, the light travels up from under the shade and through the edge of the glass. It’s really quite special.”
Photograph courtesy of Michael Pham.
The high-spec canopy meshes industrial metal with a patina finish, offsetting the vintage colour and texture of the shade. “The patina process is another reason why this [piece] is timeless. It’s something that’s been happening for centuries and it’s perfect, we don’t need to fix it,” says Jermyn.
And with the launch of this collaboration, Oft is making a case for the end of the design auteur — with a brand ethos that propels local and upcoming designers onto the scene.
“It’s our job as a lighting brand to produce objects that are well-made and beautiful, but our role as a brand is to facilitate other designers to execute their vision. CJ and I have spent quite a lot of time drilling down what Oft means as a brand, and we see our role as a support and guide to other designers and architects,” says Jermyn. of-t.com
