Lightovation June 2025 Recap - Part 1
Lightovation June 2025 was fantastic!
As many of you who are regular readers of my blog know, or who have followed me for a while, I have been going to and speaking at Lightovation for years now, but this time I got to go just as an attendee, and had a wonderful time exploring so many of the beautiful showrooms there, seeing my friends, and listening to the excellent speakers.
I took hundreds and hundreds of pictures and many videos, too. In this post, I’m going to share with you what I thought were some of the highlights for me. I might do a Part 2, as well, but this will give you a taste of what a great show this is to attend and what I saw.
First time Lightovation exhibitor, Eichholtz, whose stunning chandelier is shown in the opening image, knocked it out of the park. Their showroom, while much smaller than their showroom at High Point, showcased their lighting in small room settings, with furniture, which gave it contextual relevance when it came to understanding proportion and scale. That was very smart of them.
As always, their fresh flowers were outstanding, too.
First time exhibitor, Arabella, stunned me with this hanging pendant chandelier, shown below. They had a video at the front of their showroom showing all the glass being handblown which really helped me to understand the process. I loved the gorgeous articulation in all of the fittings, as well. Definitely worth a look if you don’t know them.
I’ve shared so much over the years about Geo Contemporary, a wonderful line of ceramic fixtures out of Brazil. I got to know the owners over dinner last year, and was gifted one of their gorgeous lighted planters, shown after the image you see below, which I’ve had outside for a year now.
They are well known for being on the cutting edge of shape, texture and color. Their line allows for color customization as well as customization of the cord colors and mixing and matching of the fixture and ceiling canopy colors and they are reasonably priced for the quality.
You can choose any of Geo Contemporary’s ceramic colors for this lighted planter, and you can also mix and match the base and top. It’s also now being made in a smaller size, but I like this size the best. The plants in mine are doing well.. although I lost a few due to lack of watering…
Mauricio, one of the 2 owners of Geo Contemporary, is a master gardener, and does all of the planting of these himself. He and his business partner and wife, Mayra, are two of the nicest people you will ever meet.
Stay tuned for something a little fun happening in their Fall HPMKT showroom — an idea I gave to them during our conversation - and which they loved.
I always find something new to gasp at in the Maxim Lighting showroom, where Studio M Lighting is also shown. This fixture, designed by Matt Sanders and part of the Studio M line, really caught my eye this time even though it’s not new, because of the way the light filters through these discs.
I don’t know why I haven’t taken notice of it before! It’s stunning.
PS: Maxim excels at hospitality. They always serve such delicious meals to their visitors during Lightovation and I’m grateful to be able to eat such a wide and healthy array of food in their showroom when I visit.
Thank you, Naomi.
On a completely different note in terms of style, first time exhibitor, Piatoni, from France, showed in the International Pavillion. They had a tiny spot there and I’m so glad I noticed them.
I fell in love with this clever and delicate lighting made of plywood and flat packed for easy shipping.
This little table lamp was so cute I wanted to pet it. It’s a great example of design eliciting an emotional reaction.
Major fan exhibitor, Fanimation, was a standout this time, too. Their mix and match customization options are AMAZING and noone can touch their signage for really explaining the product.
The most wonderful thing about Fanimation for me, this time, though, was what their owner, Nathan Frampton, taught me was possible. Nathan has used SUMO.AI to develop songs for each of his fan styles!!!
He sent me his song for the fan shown below this image: Islander. Listen to it for a minute. You won’t believe it. It was all created by AI…the lyrics, the sound, everything…..in less than one minute.
Here it is: https://suno.com/song/39d95327-c1c4-407f-9b81-9ae19ac3a569?sh=3m4xF5sfcQMg4OS0
Learning things like this is what makes attending Lightovation so much fun for me. Thank you, Nathan, for showing me what was possible.
I’ve written before about EGLO lighting, a showroom that’s smaller, but this time they introduced a new material that I haven’t seen used too much recently: mercury glass. This pendant grouping really caught my eye.
It was so beautiful in person and the reflective quality of the glass had me dreaming of how much brighter a small space could look if these fixtures were used where there was natural light that could be bounced off this surface.
Speaking of needing a lot of light…
I heard a FABULOUS presentation on circadian rhythms and their impact on our health and sleep from Dr. Mariana Figueiro, who is the Director of the Light and Health Research Center (LHRC) at Mount Sinai and Professor of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
She was very clear that in the morning we need at least 2 hours of bright light aimed directly at our eyes and in the evening we need 2 hours of very dim light before going to bed, in order to reset our natural circadian clock for our health and a better night’s sleep.
[ No more nighttime scrolling for me… or reading by a bright light right before I close my eyes ].
She is well known for her research on the effects of lighting on Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, which was very interesting to me and to my friend and client who was in the audience with me, Lori Carpenter, the founder of The 3rd Phase Instagram Live Show and Facebook Group community.
This is truly why having all the lighting in your home on dimmers is genuinely important..and paying attention, too, the light bulbs you’re using. The interior and lighting designers in the audience were all absorbing everything she shared. It was such a good talk.
I hope you will all go and look her up and read some of her many articles.
As always, Patti Carpenter gave a great trend presentation on what she saw at Milan’s lighting show, Euroluce.
I always enjoy Patti’s presentations as I don’t travel the world like she does and so I learn a lot.
This time, the trend she mentioned that really stood out to me was how lighting manufacturers are pressing herbs into glass and other materials. She showed us a slide with this lavender pendant fixture, where the herbs had been pressed into the glass and then removed, and then later, I saw Hinkley’s new PRIMROSE fixture, shown on my image below with the lavender colored fixture Patti shared with us.
Herbs are having a moment and Hinkley’s new fixture is just gorgeous. Are you seeing that edge detail?
Speaking of Hinkley, it is Hinkley’s recently retired national director of showroom sales, Karyn Hayes, who is the 2025 recipient of the annual Women in Lighting Leadership Award. Each year, the ALA’s Women in Lighting (WIL) Committee recognizes one outstanding colleague for her dedication to mentorship, leadership, and networking in the industry.
Here’s a picture of Karyn, standing next to Laura Van Zeyl, VP of Marketing for Lightovation and other women involved with Women In Lighting.
This is a long post, I know, and I still have a lot more products and people to show you, but they are all in video, so I will work on a Part 2 for you next week.
Before I go, I want to thank my beautiful friend and client, Lori Carpenter, who was also there. Lori, the founder of The 3rd Phase, and one of the Top 25 interior designers in Arkansas, always makes any place she is more fun and lively. If you know her, you know it’s true!
Here she is at Zafferano, showing you these adorable rechargeable cordless table lights whose shades are interchangeable. Be sure to watch.. this is a great idea from Zafferano.
Until next time… thank you to all of you who made my time at Lightovation so enjoyable, who said hi to me, who taught me something new, and who fed me! I appreciate all of you.. and especially you, Allison John and Ginger Hartford, as the programming you put in place this time was outstanding.
And… if you all haven’t seen my just for joy Instagram feed yet, Design Happy Living, I invite you to go take a peek at it at https://www.instagram.com/designhappyliving. This pic of me, taken by Patrick of Am2PmImages in the new IDS Designer Lounge at Dallas Market, designed by Robin Burrill, [ have you seen it yet? It’s fabulous! ] was taken so I could use it for Design Happy Living.
It’s truly ME.
As always, thank you for taking your time to read my blog, and I’d love to have you as a subscriber, too, if you’re not already one.
Part 2 will be forthcoming.. you will not want to miss the best track lighting system I’ve ever seen.
Until then….
Leslie Carothers
Savour Partnership