Black Gamma D Pendant Lamp by Serena Confalonieri for Mason Editions

Born in Vimercate, Italy in 1980, Serena Confalonieri studied interior design at the Politecnico di Milano, graduating with a Master’s Degree in 2006. After school, she worked in a number of architecture and design practices in Milan, Barcelona, and Berlin, and collaborated with the interior design department at the Politecnico di Milano as an assistant professor. She established her own studio in Milan in 2011, dedicated to product, textile, and graphic design; art direction; and interiors.  

Since launching her Milan studio, Confalonieri has traveled extensively to accomplish her work. In 2014, for example, she was awarded a grant by Banca del Monte di Lombardia to study and work in the textile industry for six months in New York. In 2015, she participated in a design workshop in Chiapas, Mexico, promoted by Mexico Design Week. In 2016, she held a month-long residency at the Vista Alegre porcelain company in Ílhavo, Portugal.

Regardless of medium, Confalonieri’s work is marked by a strong, graphical style, which is enhanced by bold forms, colors, and textures. Standout projects to date include the self-initiated Masai Collection, a series of colorful vases and mirrors inspired by tribal culture; the wave-inspired, steel tabletop Kyma Collection for Sambonet; Architypes, a graphic façade and interior installation for Archiproducts in Milan playing on a bold, geometric pattern; and the fashion-inspired Ula and Baba chairs for My Home Collection (all 2017). Confalonieri’s clients include CC-Tapis, Crate&Barrel USA, Nodus, Swatch, Wall&Deco, Arzberg, Gur, and Azimut Yachts, among others.

The designer has received multiple honors, including a Special Mention at the Young&Design Awards (2014) for her Santissimi and Cattedrale projects and a Special Mention at the German Design Awards (2016) for the Serena Collection for Arzberg. Additionally, she was named a winner of the Donna Premium 2017, promoted by Grazia and Lierac. Her work has also been featured in a variety of publications, including The New York Times, Corriere della Sera, Wallpaper, Interni, L’Officiel, and Elle Décor. 

Smart, sleek, and versatile, Mason Editions produce objects in sophisticated color palettes to generate poetic fusions of form and function.

Having built up a wide range of experience in the interior lighting sector, Italian entrepreneur Fabio Mason of Lucerpa Srl was keen to collaborate with different practitioners to produce a variety of elegant household objects. In 2016, he joined forces with three independent designers: Matteo Fiorini, who has a background in yachting, furniture, and exhibition design; Serena Confalonieri, who had been working in design practices in Milan, Barcelona and Berlin, and had been awarded at the German Design Awards 2016; and Martina Bartoli, who, having trained at the Glasgow School of Art and at ENSCI Les Ateliers, Paris, had worked as a product designer at Palomba Serafini Associati studio. Based in Castelfranco Veneto in the Veneto region of Italy, the company works with high quality suppliers and artisans – including glass-blowers and metalworkers – to generate sleek, sophisticated pieces that adapt to many different living environments and situations. The resulting collection, art directed by Confalonieri and Fiorini, in collaboration with Bartoli, comprises of a range of lamps, objects, and accessories characterized by simple, essential lines. Produced in a thoughtful palette of matte pastels, grays, teals, ruby-reds, and metallics, each design attends to both beauty and versatility.

The studio’s series of Touché trays, designed by Bartoli, combine an organically-shaped wooden base–round or oval–with a light metal tube applied to its circumference. This rests obediently along its surface before lifting up, generating handles in a deft, symmetrically undulating motion. Featuring bases of different colors, the series, when positioned next to each other, resembles the varied tablets of a paint box, bright with possibility. In keeping with this artistic inclination is the series of Mia vases, designed by Confalonieri. The soft lines of a round, terracotta or metal base (produced in an array of colors), are contrasted with enclosing grids of perforated sheet metal, generating an elegant, architectural contrast, reminiscent of the decorative effects of the Viennese Secession. A similarly artistic approach to product design is evident in the Fugit series of vases by Fiorini. Constructed from a metal sheet, it seems to fold in on itself, generating a series of angular enclosures, elevations, and apertures and resembles the rigid, straight-edged structure of a building, rather than a vessel. This playful, sculptural approach to function is evident in the more elaborate pieces produced by Mason Editions. Confalonieri’s Lotus table lamp–perched on a conical base of aluminum or brass–presents an abstracted, geometrically simplified depiction of the flower. Its blossoms are constructed from three different elements in blown glass, leading to an intimate, delicate atmosphere when operational. Fiorini’s Alby table, meanwhile, fuses the simple form of a three-legged side-table with a small, spherical lamp of etched white blown glass. In a playful maneuver, the light source seems to have such a weight as to deform the table’s surface-plane on which it rests, in a downward dip. Named in tribute to Albert Einstein, the piece is inspired by the physicist’s space-time studies, his famous Theory of Relativity, and by observations surrounding the movements of a photon.

Mason Editions participated in Milan Design Week 2018 and in Light Blowing, as part of Venice Glass Week 2018. Their work has been featured in a variety of international design journals, including ELLE Décor and Marie-Claire.