Mezzaluna Floor

Bruno Gecchelin

One day, Anne from the sales team called: “Fred, we really need a floor lamp in our collection—one with some punch.” By that she meant a powerful lamp. There are effective floor lamps on the market, though not always beautiful ones. They often come with a little reading light that seems unable to decide whether it is a showerhead or a lamp. In the 1980s, we all had those famous halogen uplighters. Even I, already a lighting collector, had an IKEA one. Nobody is perfect: a sort of salad bowl on a pole. There was tremendous creativity in the eighties, but few lamps have survived the passage of time because they are so strongly marked by their era. One lamp I kept seeing in documentaries about architects, particularly a series on Arte, was Mezzaluna. It appeared in the homes of great architects whose work still makes us dream. Architects are not always interested in objects, which are often too talkative for them. Yet Mezzaluna frequently stands beside them. That is no coincidence: it is a lighting tool, with no chatter and no misplaced ego. In that respect, it resembles its creator, Bruno Gecchelin: discreet, elegant, always effective in his smiles and his carefully chosen words. It is hard to explain why Mezzaluna moves so easily through space, styles and time, from a traditional apartment to a loft, a chalet or a house in Greece. It reminds me of an interview with Yves Montand I saw as a child. Yes, not the youngest reference! A journalist asked him what it meant to have class. The question sounded a little like Aldo Maccione, but Montand's answer has stayed with me: “To feel comfortable in your own skin in any situation.” Perhaps Mezzaluna has class. Forgive the slightly old-fashioned expression—but why not? It certainly carries its head beautifully. It has great grace. If it came to life, it would probably be a dancer. And if it were a dancer, we might call her Aurélie.