Seletti Monkey

Finding inspiration in mundane and everyday items for the creation of covetable designer objects is only one way of defining the work of Seletti. The Italian brand’s visionary endeavor to merge design and Pop art has for decades yielded an extensive range of table lamps, chairs, sofas and other furniture and decor.

Romano Seletti founded his namesake brand as an importer of products for the home in 1964. It is now helmed by his son and daughter, Stefano and Miria Seletti. Owing to the siblings’ leadership — and the lessons learned from Romano — the company is widely recognized as an innovative force in design. Seletti furniture and objects are prized for their quality and singularity, and the brand’s owners have introduced clever, endlessly talked-about designs, such as its Hot Dog sofa and Burgher chair or its Monkey lamps and chandeliers.

One of Stefano’s own early collections of elevated decorative objects, Estetico Quotidiano, saw him using glass and porcelain to remodel common items like plastic cups and watering cans. The marriage of daily life and avant-garde design in this specific work, which is charming and also functional, speaks to Seletti’s ability to see beauty in the everyday.

Some of Seletti’s most notable home goods owe to collaborations with other talented studios. Studio Job founders Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel worked with Seletti to create unconventional lighting, like the adjustable Banana table lamp — a sculptural and fun fixture made of bronze, resin and glass — as well as a large collection of serveware including bowls, serving pieces and tea sets. The partnership also produced the aforementioned food-themed seating.

Esteemed Italian designer Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba drew on his curiosity about the natural world to design Seletti’s Jurassic lamp and other lamps inspired by the animal kingdom. Seletti and Toiletpaper magazine founders Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari created the Seletti Wears Toiletpaper line, which includes chairs emblazoned with colorful patterns and Surrealist art, mirrors, bars of soap, carpets and more. Works in the series were made available to consumers by the Museum of Modern Art’s Design Store in 2014.

Seletti furniture and objects are guaranteed to spark conversation. Each piece, expertly crafted and chock-full of personality, will breathe life into any space it calls home.

On 1stDibs, find a range of Seletti lighting, seating, decorative objects and collectibles.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

The right table lamp, outwardly sculptural chandelier or understated wall pendant can work wonders for your home. While we’re indebted to thinkers like Thomas Edison for critically important advancements in lighting and electricity, we’re still finding new ways to customize illumination to fit our personal spaces all these years later. A wide range of antique and vintage lighting can be found on 1stDibs.

Today, lighting designers like the self-taught Bec Brittain have used the flexible structure of LEDs to craft glamorous solutions by working with what is typically considered a harsh lighting source. By integrating glass and mirrors, reflection can be used to soften the glow from LEDs and warmly welcome light into any space.

Although contemporary innovators continue to impress, some of the classics can’t be beat. 

Just as gazing at the stars allows you to glimpse the universe’s past, vintage chandeliers like those designed by Gino Sarfatti and J. & L. Lobmeyr, for example, put on a similarly stunning show, each with a rich story to tell.

As dazzling as it is, the Arco lamp, on the other hand, prioritizes functionality — it’s wholly mobile, no drilling required. Designed in 1962 by architect-product designers Achille & Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, the piece takes the traditional form of a streetlamp and creates an elegant, arching floor fixture for at-home use.

There is no shortage of modernist lighting similarly prized by collectors and casual enthusiasts alike — there are Art Deco table lamps created in a universally appreciated style, the Tripod floor lamp by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Greta Magnusson Grossman's sleek and minimalist Grasshopper lamps and, of course, the wealth of mid-century experimental lighting that emerged from Italian artisans at Arredoluce, FLOS and many more are hallmarks in illumination innovation. 

With decades of design evolution behind it, home lighting is no longer just practical. Crystalline shaping by designers like Gabriel Scott turns every lighting apparatus into a luxury accessory. A new installation doesn’t merely showcase a space; carefully chosen ceiling lights, table lamps and floor lamps can create a mood, spotlight a favorite piece or highlight your unique personality.

The sparkle that your space has been missing is waiting for you amid the growing collection of antique, vintage and contemporary lighting for sale on 1stDibs.