Working with Martyn Lawrence Bullard on special custom pieces for his kitchen in his recently acquired 1920s Mediterranean-style Hollywood bungalow, we developed a relationship to create a custom collection together. If you've seen House Beautiful's September 2018 issue and its cover story of the Kitchen of the Year, you've seen them. You're in luck: what started out as custom pieces for Martyn became just one of several sexy new lighting fixtures for his debut lighting collection with Corbett. These ones are called Melrose, and we'll tell you a bit more about them below.

Kitchen by Martyn Lawrence Bullard | Photo by Victoria Pearson for House Beautiful

Kitchen by Martyn Lawrence Bullard | Photo by Victoria Pearson for House Beautiful

Kitchen by Martyn Lawrence Bullard | Photo by Victoria Pearson for House Beautiful

Throwing his arms around the world, Martyn's collection conveys key design ideas from several disparate time periods and locales. His passions, his travels, his respect for place-specific artisanal methods are all on display here. 

This video from the launch of the collection in High Point this October gives a great overview of the collection and allows Martyn to tell the story our partnership, as well as what he loves about these pieces. 

Before we jump into showing you each piece with insight into its inspiration, execution, and notable details, here's Martyn, in his own words, about this exciting collection:

Lighting is one of the most important elements of a room.

It is not only the finishing decorative touch, but how the actual light emanating from the fixtures affects the entire feeling of the space, creating both ambience and romance.

When asked to create a collection for Corbett, I wanted to design fixtures that grabbed the imagination: pieces that would not only fill a space with perfect lighting, but that would become the focal point of the spaces they will live in. Statements that are at once beautiful, thought-provoking and provide just the right amount of magic.

It's a collection that gives the final user complete decorative freedom to stamp their own personality on their interiors across the broad spectrum of designs.

It's a collection for today, inspired by the past as well as the future.

As always, live, love, and decorate...

Broomley

Small in scale but big in detail, Broomley is a combination of '70s streamline design with mid-century mixed mediums. Solid brass given a weathered vintage finish and an opal white glass diffuser merge in a simplified form, conveying the high style of that age. These luxe materials allow this piece to stand alone or make an even bigger statement when grouped or lined up together.

Carayes

Carayes takes an industrial shape and infuses it with a flavor of the tropics. Hand-cut pieces of sustainable rattan form the shade, its natural texture creating an inspired contrast with the stainless steel accents. The result is a piece that manages to sport a vintage vibe while also feeling innately modern.

Everley

Inspired by a pearl earring once belonging to Elizabeth Taylor, Everley exudes modern simplicity and a sense of luxury. Its asymmetry and alluring use of negative space charm in vintage brass. Everley is at once elegant and timeless, like the style of the person whom the pearl earring adorned.

Hopper

When Martyn Lawrence Bullard moved into a '20s villa in the Hollywood Hills lived in by actor Dennis Hopper in the '60s, inspiration took hold. Named after the actor, artist, and art collector, this piece has a beautiful synergy between the two sides of its brass leaves. The side supporting the white glass diffusers like peas in a pod has a handsome, dark vintage brass finish, while the reverse has been soaked until a beautiful, smooth natural black. Striking and minimal, with evocations of both mid-century modernism and nature, Hopper is powerful and unique, like its namesake.  

Magic Garden

Coco Chanel was enamored of the camellia flower, incorporating it into her designs and the outfits she wore, even working giant silk camellias into her fashion shows. The glamour and whimsical elegance of this always inspired Martyn Lawrence Bullard, so he infused this secret passion of his into his wondrous Magic Garden collection. Mouth-blown smoked glass diffusers radiate from the core of these petals, constructed of mixed metals. Hand-crafted iron flowers contrast satin black, graphite, and bronze leaf for a wild work of dramatic decorative fantasy. 

Melrose

Inspired by the French industrialist movement of the 1940s, these blown glass and vintage brass fixtures conjure a vibe of old Parisian cafés, yet their scale is a bold modern statement, giving these fixtures a timeless and multi-functional appeal. The hand-applied finish has a rich, aged patina that sets these pieces apart. The smaller, one-light pendant version with matching canopy and cloth-covered cord feature thick, polished acrylic for the diffuser, adding yet another layer of glamour. 

Milan

Hand-blown Venetian glass butterflies flirt around our gilded metal frame in this fantastical fixture. Using an ancient Italian technique known as piastra, there is an amber smoke running through the glass of each handmade butterfly. Milan is inspired by vintage Murano pieces the worldly Martyn Lawrence Bullard has collected along his travels around the globe. 

Romanov

Inspired by the magnificence of the Romanov Palaces that line the canals of St. Petersburg, these flush mounts capture the opulent neoclassical tastes of the last Tsar and Tsarina, Nicholas and Catherine II. The frames of solid brass are a masterwork of craftsmanship, using the art of sand casting which goes back thousands of years to give each piece individual character and depth. A frosted glass diffuser evently distributes the light and completes the fixture's air of unadulterated elegance.

Utopia

Inspired by the sculptural light fixtures made popular in Italy during the '50s by the likes of Gio Ponti, these fixtures have a twist of their own with the unexpected use of Acacia wood shades. The depth and texture allows these fixtures to become a design classic in their own right. The white-and-metal version with polished brass acccents is a bold monochromatic statement that proves the eternal decorative power of black-and-white on the home.

You can shop the collection here.

Photos from High Point and header photo by Wendy Riley.