Go Fish: Inventive Lighting from Barcelona

Since I first fell for vintage goods dealer Hitoshi Uchida’s fishing basket lampshade, I’ve been on the hunt for something similar. The other day, Julie spotted these Colimbo lights from Barcelona-based designers Manolito & Manolita; we thought we’d share.

Founded in 2011 by Faidra Matziaraki, a Greek from Edinburgh, and Victor Gonzalez Marti, a Spanish architect, Manolito & Manolita (M&M) build furniture and lighting around a collection of “unwanted domestic material,” as they say, in and around the city. Their Colimbo lights came about from the duo weaving fish traps at the old port of Barcelona. The lamps can be found at Oikos, Mar de Vaca, and Coco-Mat in Barcelona and online through M&M.

Above: The lights are made from meshed fishing traps woven in black and gold wire. 

Above: With the traps, Matziaraki and Marti weave in white cotton fabric as if it were the weft of a textile. The cotton is set away from the bulb using a metal lamp holder at the top of the shade.

Above: The shades hang from a fabric electrical cable, are lightweight and foldable.

Above: A detail of the cotton thread.

For more mesh lampshades see our previous post: 5 Favorites: Japanese-Inspired Mesh Pendant Lights. For woven: High/Low: A Trio of Woven Wicker Pendant Lamps.