Friday, September 7, 2007

Are you planning colors for a nostalgic decor? Let a crystal chandelier inspire you. Study the 32 varieties of The Rose for ideas about color combinations.

This is a somewhat novel approach. Usually people think in terms of furnishings, fabrics, wall treatments and so forth when choosing colors for a room. The lighting has to get in line with all these prior decisions.

But The Rose is expressed in so many different tonalities, you really can use this crystal chandelier to shop color ideas.

At first Schonbek introduce The Rose in twelve crystal color palettes. I thought that was impressive. But Andrew Schonbek often gets carried away in the process of designing new products. If more is good, even more is better, seems to be his viewpoint. He just doesn’t want to stop having fun. And in my opinion, it’s an amazing act of generosity to the consumer, to invent so many renditions of a single crystal chandelier design.

And so more color palettes were added to the mix for The Rose. Then there was additional experimentation with frame finishes. Add all these games with color together and you get 35 varieties of one crystal chandelier.  Oh, and the chandelier comes in several sizes and configurations, too.

Other chandelier makers are not interested in offering an over-the-top multiplicity of choices. Most are into streamlining. They need to simplify because they’re shipping product from offshore factories and suppliers.

Schonbek is manufacturing in the U.S., and the Schonbeks are working one-on-one with their engineers and other team members. So it’s very personal, and there’s total flexibility.

Every new crystal chandelier design is handled like a pet project. And that joyful approach infuses the design with a happy quality all its own. This is very apparent with The Rose.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

“The golden age” is a turn of phrase I’ve been guilty of using in copy. It may be a cliché, but wouldn’t it be nice to live there! In fact, we do. We’re in a new golden age of the crystal chandelier.

Designers are daring to use crystal chandeliers in spaces and in ways they never would have ten or twenty years ago. A crystal chandelier is no longer easy to define. It can be the chandelier we recognize from our visits to museums, certainly. But it can also be wildly colorful or coolly contemporary. It can have arms or not. It can be perfectly round, and dishwasher safe (Obviously I’m thinking of  Da Vinci™).

But no golden age is complete without gold. Note the chandeliers Schonbek has designed with Strass® Golden Teak crystal.

The golden persona of these chandeliers has nothing to do with ingot gold, prospector gold or overdressed princess gold. This amazing Strass® crystal is a deep dark gold, almost the color of aged teak furniture, except that it’s also tremendously rich and lively.

With a golden teak chandelier like Olde World, you can have your glitz without being glitzy. Somehow the delicious dark shimmer of the crystal feels very different from the all-out dazzle of clear crystal. The crystal pendants and octagons are just as finely faceted, whether teak or clear. Yet the visual impression is altogether different.

There is absolutely no substitute for seeing a Strass® Golden Teak chandelier in person. We have a video on this website, and several photographs. But you really should visit a showroom that carries these new designs for the authentic experience. Call Schonbek at 800-836-1892 for the name and location of a dealer in your area.

Bring along paint and fabric samples, to get an idea of how a Golden Teak chandelier would interact with your color scheme.

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Tahitian is back on the website. We must have deleted this chandelier by mistake sometime when we were adding new designs. I just noticed its absence lately.

Tahitian is never going to be everyone’s favorite crystal chandelier. You need to have a wild streak to appreciate its eccentric profile, suggestive of an exotic jungle plant. You have to be able to live with the dazzle of gold, because the finish is a rich, bright gold, not a bit subtle, and even the candleslips are gold. And you can’t be stuck on tradition, because the trim is an unusual mix of amethyst and black diamond colored crystal and clear crystal globes.

All of this describes my husband, who loves Tahitian and got one for his study.

Tahitian feels quite primitive from one point of view, probably because of those golden fronds that form its body. On the other hand, it feels sophisticated. The high gold content, colorwise, sends a message of opulence. And the crystal elements and pendants are beautifully handcut and finely faceted. This tension between primitive shapes and civilized ornamentation is what makes Tahitian so appealing to its fans.

For an eccentric chandelier Tahitian wears very well.  I look at it every day on my dashes down the hallway, and it always calls to me, reminding me that it’s okay to be unconventional. More than okay.