Christopher Boots in his studio, in front of his Prometheus III chandelier in brass and quartz crystal.

As the winter sun sets sooner, the lights come on earlier. And although those monumental lamps by mid-century Italian designers such as Achille Castiglioni and Joe Colombo are doing a fine job of looking iconic, I find myself craving something new. Something by the likes of Melbourne lighting designer Christopher Boots, for instance.

Boots set up his practice not quite a decade ago and quickly established an aesthetic that marks him as a talent apart. Handcrafted and quirky, often involving clusters of quartz crystals, his work is representative of a move towards small-batch, artisanal production by a new breed of designers who rejoice in the hand-touched.

A still life in Christopher Boots' home includes curios alongside Sugar Bomb table lamps and a Prometheus chandelier.

To get a glimpse into Boot’s process – and indeed, the interior of his workspace in the inner-city district of Fitzroy – you can tune into the National Gallery of Victoria’s Live In-Studio Artist Visit series on Wednesday, June 24.

Boots will be in conversation with Simone LeAmon, a curator of the NGV’s Department of Contemporary Architecture & Design.

“Christopher’s workshop is a fantastic setup and a true eye-opener for people who may not understand that we have such a dynamic designer-maker community in Melbourne,” says LeAmon..

The workshop occupies a two-storey, 1940s light industrial building. Boots’ production team – handling everything from incoming raw materials to manufacturing and final dispatch – is on the 350-square-metre ground floor. The design team, sales squad and executive are on the top floor, which also houses Gallery Boots, an exhibition space in which the designer hosts shows of like-minded local creatives. In all, the studio employs about 25 people.

A pair of crystal-encrusted Meteor suspension lamps, handcrafted in the studio of Christopher Boots.

“We’ve been nurtured by the Melbourne design community and are intent on giving back in whatever way we can,” says Boots, who will spend the time online showing LeAmon, and the viewer, throughout the space.

“COVID has meant that these kind of in-isolation conversations have flourished in these past months, but I’m keen to really give viewers a sense of my operations and, in effect, my world,” he says.

Boots studied industrial design at Swinburne National School of Design but found the idea of working for a mass production company unappealing. So he parlayed his way into a job with legendary lighting designer Geoffrey Mance, whose sculptural work included the uplighting of Collins Street and the Fitzroy Gardens, vital elements of the regeneration of Melbourne's CBD.

When Mance died of cancer in 2007, Boots and another staffer took over the company and rechristened it Mance Design in honour of its founder.

However, it was when he launched his own studio on November 11, 2011 (Boots is not impartial to numerology), that the designer truly came into his own.

Boots' ORP (as in Oblique Rhombic Prism) lamp in full glory.

His early work was often in brass, always with a geometric bent: his launch product, the ORP chandelier (as in Oblique Rhombic Prism), was a hit, and LeAmon included it in her mammoth design show Melbourne Now, which ran throughout 2013.

“It seems strange to think that Christopher had only recently set up his studio then,” she recalls. “His style and his business sense seemed so established even so early on.”

The ORP chandelier was bought by the NGV for the cafeteria of the Roy Grounds building on St Kilda Road, eventually entering the permanent collection of the Department of Contemporary Architecture and Design when it was established in 2015.

Boots upped the ante with his ORP crystal lamp.

If Boots’ early geometric brass work appeared an elegant interpretation of a prevailing global trend, it was when he began incorporating crystals into his designs that he forged a unique way ahead.

He first tried applying translucent quartz crystals within the parameters of the ORP’s radically skewed rhomboid, and the results were pleasing. Then came the Prometheus series, essentially large brass rings that, when hung horizontally and encrusted with crystals, looked aflame. Hung vertically with the crystals facing outward, they seem to echo the sun; inward, the form evokes a lunar eclipse.

Pythagoras is a series of triangular brass sconces, crystals applied as the acquirer desires (the beauty of a small studio is that a part of the process can be given over to private commissions).

Goliath, which looks like a giant, jagged black and white comet hangs proudly in the Humming Puppy yoga studio in New York, the whole space resonating at 40 hertz and 7.83 hertz, frequencies thought to enhance the meditative experience.

The Goliath (medium) chandelier, the large version of which hangs in the Humming Puppy yoga studio in New York.

A little bit hippy, a whole lot hipster, Boots jibes just right with his times.

His love of minerals, he reckons, comes from a nerdy only-child upbringing and an early love of solitary rock collecting. The invocations of Greek mythology and mathematics are allusions to his own origins (his grandparents fled Greece after World War II; the name Boots is an anglicisation of his ancient patronym).

As Melbourne gradually reopens, Boots’ staff are slowly coming back to the studio. If he’s learnt one thing from the COVID-19 experience, he says, it’s adaptive resilience.

“There is always going to be change in the world and we need to be able to pivot personally and professionally in order to evolve,” says Boots, who incarnates a new era of conscionable consumption. "Learn new skills, discover unanticipated aspects of ourselves in order to move onto the next phase of our development."

LeAmon enthuses: “When I walk into Christopher’s space, I feel transformed. All of a sudden I just feel so, well, cool.”

Tom Dixon Semi-Annual Sale 15% off all products from 10/2 - 10/16

The Wingback Chair by Tom Dixon

In addition to the sale, Tom Dixon is celebrating one of their most iconic furniture and upholstery lines throughout the month of October. The Wingback is a seating series that builds upon a 17th century English archetype re-thought and updated for the 21st century. The extravagant and fully upholstered form has been tweaked and teased to give an even more rakish silhouette, the ergonomics adjusted for more comfort as well as the frame being re-tooled for industrial production. The result is an elegant functional sculpture fit for the members club, the hotel lobby or a special place in your home.

The collection includes an arm chair, a dining chair, sofas and an ottoman. Each chair's legs are made of solid oak or copper-plated steel. All are available in a wide range of colors and fabrics. 

For more information contact sales@twentieth.net

I never felt compelled to get involved with rugs until I met Brian. The way he integrates metal with textile is brilliant! And I can guarantee you’ve never felt anything so soft and luxurious in a floor covering! --Stefan

Twentieth is proud to announce ERDEN’s Southern California launch.

Founded in 2016 by Brian Erden, ERDEN’s approach to rug design rests on three primary pillars: technique, innovation, and curiosity. Drawing from such disparate genre as theater and physics, ERDEN’s first collection of hand-woven carpets is comprised of materials ranging from suri alpaca to patinated bronze.

HUMPS

Humps uses buried negative space of hemp flatweave and the natural loft of camelhair to effect undulated dunes of pile.

TWO BAR

Two Bar combines unique yarn prep with ERDEN’s patented embedding of objects into a woven textile for the floor—in this case, bronze bars with hand-channeled surface details.

ETCHED

Etched is available in Mohair, Alpaca, Merino, and Hemp with staccato dashes of two types of hand-carved bronze.

PARK

Park uses the pressure contained in each knot to cause an ombre-of-design in an otherwise static trellis.

STEPS

ERDEN’s purest design: Steps in Suri Alpaca.

All designs are available in custom sizes.

For more information please email us at sales@twentieth.net

Twentieth now represents NLXL wallpaper.
NLXL wallpaper uses implied textures that stretch beyond graphic designs into life-like representations of materials such as marble, wood and concrete. This appearance is further enhanced by the fact that none of the designs repeat.
Below is a small selection of styles along with some insight from their corresponding designers.

PIET BOON

"Concrete with its sober, subdued character is one of my favorite materials. And now there is this fabulous wallpaper which lets one transform a space, be it a wall or ceiling easily and in a very affordable way. Another huge advantage is that minor damages don't show. They seemingly disappear naturally in the structure."

CON-07 by Piet Boon

CON-03 by Piet Boon

CON-02 by Piet Boon

STUDIO JOB

From Job Smeets: “Where do you put the paintings?”, I hear someone asking, frowning. My reply: “The white wall behind a painting is an idea of modernism. In the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not uncommon to present art on silk wallpaper with very busy patterns. But let me put it another way: you don’t need paintings with this wallpaper. This is beyond styling.”

Perished by Studio Job

PIET HEIN EEK

“A lot of companies have made marble reproduction products, but never in the way we envisioned it. So we decided to give it a try. When the printing proofs came in we were thrilled. You just want to install it everywhere! Besides marble we were working on other materials, like a Burnt Wood wallpaper. We decided that we could not do this without the expertise of Maarten Baas, famous for his Smoked furniture collection. Maarten liked the idea, and together we made a Burnt Wood wallpaper.”

Burnt Wood by Piet Hein Eek & Maarten Baas

White Marble by Piet Hein Eek

Black Marble by Piet Hein Eek

For more information please email us at sales@twentieth.net