Discover bold new designs in lamps and bulbs

I HAVE a vivid recollection from childhood of making an unannounced visit with my mother to an elderly grand-aunt, and her fluster at having visitors when she had just taken down her ceiling light shades for the annual wash, leaving the light bulbs exposed.

While we’re unlikely to fluster nowadays at such an occurrence — not least because most of us don’t have time to take shades down and give them a wash — the filament light bulb was, back then, considered a purely functional item with all the aesthetic attraction of pipe work under the sink.

It was designed to be concealed by the shade, partly for decorative purposes, but also as a practical way of cutting down the blinding glare bouncing off the filament should you cast a glance upwards.