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Designer Spotlight: A Rosie Outlook

Lisa Nardone’s lighting conjures Old World charm and romance with a colorful edge.

A wealth of dangling drops converge with delicate glass buds and baubles, creating a decidedly feminine mystique in the Rosie NYC collections. The company (which takes its name from owner Lisa Nardone’s maternal grandmother) features chandeliers, sconces, and table and floor lamps that are dainty, but not one bit shy. Nardone – the creative force behind Rosie – uses adventurous color combinations to give her lighting artistry its flair. While the use of colored crystal is increasingly popular, Nardone’s innovative mixes – such as turquoise with lavender, vibrant red coupled with soft milky blue, and a selection of delectable sherbet pastels – give her work a distinction that sets it apart.
     Drawing from her experience as the creative merchandise director for Manhattan’s trendsetting ABC Carpet & Home, Nardone has staked her claim as an imaginative lighting designer.
     “This isn’t new to me,” she explains. During her nearly 10-year career at ABC, she worked closely with artisans and manufacturers to ensure an aesthetic continuity throughout the large department store, even doing some of the designing herself.
     “[ABC] liked to have a very layered, European flea market-type elegance. We used a lot of French and Italian pieces. Periods didn’t matter; there’s a way of mixing everything so that it works,” Nardone comments. “The store gave a thrown together impression – but, stylish and done with a good eye. We were always passionate about [the store] as if it were our own home.”
     These are the same characteristics that infuse Nardone’s lighting. She describes it as “chic-formal with a patinated, well-worn look. It is definitely feminine, but not in a sweet way. It’s more of a sexy, exotic mix. When I started in lighting, I was trying to find my own niche – how I would interpret lighting for myself. I use color to do that. These are traditional pieces, but with a twist in the color or the finish, or both. [Lighting is] jewelry for the home and should be as attractive off as it is on. That’s why the color is so important.”
     After leaving ABC, Nardone did some freelance consulting before founding Rosie. She calls her lines – which are all handmade in Italy – “new antiques.” Technically not reproductions, her products are inspired by classic fixtures and all of the Austrian and Venetian glass replicates nostalgic pieces. “These are better than antiques,” Nardone states. “If you can find a piece of this quality, it will be expensive and will likely be missing parts.”
     In just two-year-old the company has already grown from two to five lighting collections, each with its own personality.
     Pinwheel, one of Nardone’s latest introductions, evidences her desire to integrate a multitude of color into her work. “This group is really very [Dale] ‘Chiluly’. It’s my version of Modern. It uses very irregular, organic glass discs that are clear and opaque with stripes running through them.”
     “I love glass,” Nardone comments. “I saw a picture of these swirled orbs and found someone to make them for me.” Offered in 3-, 5-, and 6-light models, the Pinwheel fixtures are available with a silver finish coupled with aqua, pale green, and pale pink-striped glass and in a gold finish with red, blue, amber, and green glass.
     In Nardone’s Sunset Boulevard collection, which has a 1920s resonance, antiqued brass frames are adorned with hollow Venetian glass rods to create the “shades.”
     “It has a Norma Desmond feel,” she states. “It’s very bordello-like – dark and moody.” This series is available in three colorways: Norma, which uses green, amber, red, and clear glass; Max, rendered in pale blue, red, amber, and clear; and Peacock, which uses pale pink, pale blue, clear, and amethyst.
     For a more fanciful style, there is the Confection series. “I call them floating confections,” Nardone says of the glass accents, which mimic the look of marzipan candies. This romantic group uses lighter tones such as turquoise green, pink, and yellow vintage glass bobeches, beads, and drops hung from iron frames that have antique white, gold, or silver finishes.
     To create the Art Nouveau look of the Millefiori collection of table lamps, Nardone mixes gold or silver leaf to multi-hued glass rods that are cut and melded together. The addition of the leafing provides a greater depth of color. “The gold gives a soft, but bright tone, and the silver gives a brownish, more muted hue,” she explains of the recently debuted series that is also available in peacock blue.
     The Limited Edition selections are outfitted with all new wiring and frames, but accented exclusively with antique glass. The first introduction from this group was Dominique (named for Nardone’s sister). After September 11th, the entire 25 pieces of this collection sold out, which Nardone attributes to a renewed recognition of the home as a haven. “People with money are spending it on better things, and lighting is a really important element in a home,” she maintains.
     “My customers don’t haggle about the prices. I tell buyers, ‘If you’re not sure, don’t get it,’” Nardone states. “You have to buy what you love. If [retailers] do that, they won’t have to worry about selling it. Their enthusiasm and passion for the piece will sell it.
     “The Limited Edition collection will change constantly, but I’ll always have one. I think it’s important to have standard lines, but I don’t want to be constrained by them,” she adds. Arianna, the current series – of which Nardone will make only 10 fixtures – is an oversized six-light chandelier. “It’s a beautiful piece for a designer. It’s really big and has a lot going on. It uses amber, pink, turquoise, red, and clear glass,” she comments.
     “Most people don’t explore what they really like. From bed linens to lighting and china, if people bought what they really like, their homes would probably lay out beautifully. It’s important to feel something for the things you buy,” she advises. Carrying this philosophy into the business arena, Nardone is emphatic about only exhibiting her wares at markets and does not have a showroom. “If they don’t buy it at the show, they’re not going to buy it. If someone is standing there and they are not moved to buy right then, it’s probably not for them.”
     On a retail level, Rosie is sold at ABC Carpet & Home in the New York City area and can also be found in the Neiman Marcus, Horchow, and Sundance catalogs.
     For Nardone, the pleasure of creating has not stopped at lighting. She recently launched a mirror collection. The line grew from very ornate, oversized mirrors she had fashioned for herself, into a series of etched, softly colored Venetian glass mirrors, which can be hung or placed on a dresser. “They’re very antique-looking, and, again use color,” she reports.
     Handmade in Murano, the mirrors are available in pink, amber, clear, smoke, and pale blue.
     Despite her recent foray into accessories, Nardone remains partial to lighting. “I get to do something that I really love, and it’s fun.”