Photography by Madison Fender
Lighting doesn’t always get the respect it deserves. Often last on the décor budget, it’s frequently selected for function over form. But lighting designer Helen Gifford, founder of internationally acclaimed HelenBilt, is plugged in to showcasing the power of creative illumination.
“People don’t always understand lighting, but I call lighting or chandeliers the jewelry of a room,” says Gifford, who got her start in the hospitality industry and saw firsthand the effect of well-designed lighting in upscale restaurants. “Restaurants and hotels have some of the most incredible lighting because they have the space for it. You see lighting that you could never see in a standard home.”
Many beautiful homes and commercial spaces on the East End are far from standard, however, and have become the perfect venues to showcase the creations born of Gifford’s unique aesthetic, which she describes as “London Beach,” a nod to the formative years she spent in the British capital and in the tropical Southeast Asian island of Borneo.
Gifford came into lighting in a circuitous way, having ping-ponged around the globe before settling into her home and studio in Sag Harbor. Born in Great Britain and raised in Brunei and Montreal, she explored her creative side with classes at Rhode Island School of Design, American University in Paris and Parson’s School of Design in New York — the latter which lit the way.
“There was no lighting design at Parson’s, so I was studying interior design. For a furniture class’s final project, I made a working model of a light fixture — in what would ultimately become my Urchin collection,” she says. “The panel critique judges, who were professionals in the industry, said, ‘You need to sell that!’”
It was sound advice. After exhibiting her design at The International Contemporary Furniture Fair as a juried student, she was picked up by Plug Lighting, a showroom in Los Angeles, and her designs drew the attention of high-profile clients like Gwyneth Paltrow, Darren Star and Meg Ryan. Rapid success followed, with commissions for homes, restaurants and hotels. Today, her work is installed in venues like the ARIA Penthouse Suites in Las Vegas, Michelle Farmer Collaborate boutiques in Southampton and Florida, the Ritz-Carlton Beijing, and W Hotels.
Gifford’s luxe, eye-catching pieces could certainly be considered works of art, but there’s a balancing act at work in her designs. The trick is to not have them overshadow art or décor that already exists in a space. The various bulbs and colored materials might cast interesting shadows on the ceiling and walls, for example, and require a deep understanding of how it all works together.
“It’s a very integrated, curated art form to get the right lighting in a home. You’ve got your walls painted or wallpapered a certain color, you’ve got windows, nature, you’ve got things coming inside and out, and you’ve got your art pieces,” Gifford says. “It’s not one-size-fits-all. I have an oceanside client with a blue-chip art collection, and we had to look at where my pieces would go to balance everything out. But at the same time, traditional ‘wall art’ collectors just love art in all facets, so art collectors are really great clients of mine.”
Saturation and the Sea
Gifford’s work is comprised of three distinct series — Urchin, Concord and Vidro. Each can be fine-tuned for client commissions on an individual basis.
The Urchin series, with its distinctive spiky bulbs, was inspired by Dada movement artists like Marcel Duchamp, “who rendered things of use as useless.” Also inspired by the aquatic sea urchin, it ties into the Hampton’s beach-chic vibe. Urchin lights can be smaller and arranged into multiples or shaped into one oversized piece for maximum drama.
“Sometimes electricians might think they’ll shock the building when they see the ‘thousands’ of candelabra-based bulbs, but actually the light comes from a single light source, or maybe two or three if it’s a huge piece,” says Gifford. “It’s also quite lightweight; beautiful and buoyant.”
While Urchin references the organic, the Concord Series is more geometric. Constructed from colored Lucite panels, the collection was inspired by Minimalist artist Donald Judd, known for his colored light sculptures.
Concord is all about the interplay of color, which lends itself beautifully to interiors. “We can choose different color acrylic panels that go in, and then you get this cross section that comes through,” Gifford says. “We can set up a client with 20 panels, and they can change them out as they want to yield different combinations.”
The handblown glass Vidro Series looks to nature, with inspiration from bamboo shoots, oyster shells and champagne bubbles and, of course, famous glassblower Dale Chihuly. These pieces are a mix of translucent and opaque glass and can be built to highlight or conceal the bulbs within.
Gifford works with a longstanding Hamptons team that includes a master welder, creative electrician and fine-arts glassblower all within a 10-mile radius of her live/work studio to bring her visions to life, both aesthetically and logistically. “They get me,” she laughs.
Show and tell
To help clients understand and appreciate her work, Gifford always brings photos of previous com-missions installed on site, as lighting never stands alone but works to enhance an interior space and all that goes in it. “If the interior designer already has picked out the fabrics, then I can have a swatch of the fabrics nearby to show how they work with my designs. And I bring samples,” she says. “I pack up a large Hulken bag and wheel in samples of glass so they can see and feel it. That is the best way to describe it.”
Color is increasingly inspiring Gifford’s work, from her lighting to her growing wallpaper and textile line. “I just got back from visiting my family in London and East Anglia, and I can’t help but bring a saturation of English color into my work,” she says. “I love wallpaper and a pop of color, especially with my Lucite line. And mixing strange hues that go together, like pink and red, or green and brown.” This new branch of her business adds more into the mix to play with, giving her the opportunity to view the décor holistically in the trifecta of lighting, textiles and wallpaper, like those of the custom, hand-painted wall coverings produced for HelenBilt by Holland and Sherry.
Lately, Gifford has been pushing the envelope on her collections, experimenting with new bases and ways to mount them. She’s currently working with a lot of Lucite, which offers endless design opportunities for light bases. “Imagine a clear Lucite base with a swatch of leather, and then you mount a gorgeous piece of glass that reflects it all,” she says.
The Lucite bases, and her airy, floating pieces are a departure from the heavier brass bases that had a trend moment. She prefers to play with “lightness and levity,” evoking the ethereal with some of her cloudlike formations. “Who doesn’t need a bit of levity right now?”
And as lighting design is trending toward a shift to larger-scale fixtures, Gifford’s work continues to evolve. “It’s moving away a bit from minimalism to clustered multiples or ‘one big guy’ now,” she says of the go-big-or-go-home trend, which she’s happy to embrace. “I would say a statement piece is really important.”
Every jewelry box — and house — could use one.
