![Book Flatlay Cover Front Transparent Trio[1]](https://d31dpzy4bseog7.cloudfront.net/media/2024/06/07080212/Book_Flatlay_Cover_Front_Transparent_Trio1.png)
Coco Flip Launches the Dancer Collection
Melbourne-based furniture and lighting studio Coco Flip has partnered with local ceramicist Belinda Wiltshire on a collection of boldly striped lights inspired by the Bauhaus school.
The avant-garde Das Triadisches Ballett (The Triadic Ballet), which broke new ground in 1922 with its retro-futuristic, geometric costumes and the mechanical movements of its performers, is the inspiration for a striking new lighting collaboration from Coco Flip. The Melbourne studio has worked with ceramicist Belinda Wiltshire on the Dancer collection, a series of distinct table lamps, wall lights and mounted lights that’s been in development for 12 months. The result is a playful hybrid of sculpture and function.
Both form and pattern bring to life the unique movement associated with Das Triadisches Ballett, which was created by Oskar Schlemmer, a designer, painter, sculptor and choreographer. Schlemmer was a leading figure in Germany’s interwar Bauhaus movement. The movement – and the ballet – both leaned on principles of functionality and naturalness. Minimalist design partly achieved with geometric and abstract shapes was a key characteristic of the Bauhaus style, and is echoed here in the collection’s throughline: stripes hand-painted using black iron oxide on ceramics that are dramatic in their simplicity. Three striped finishes – wide, thin and spaced – are available, and each stands out against the warm brown of the clay. Wiltshire says her stripes are a signature: they both empower her creativity and offer a sense of cohesiveness to her work.
While Wiltshire enjoys deploying the hallmarks of the Bauhaus movement and its subversion of the tropes of mass production that emerged in the early 20th century, she says a human element is also key. This means every piece in the collection is made from wood-fired clay and has been wheel-thrown and hand-finished, then fired by the ceramicist in her Melbourne studio. Rather than the hand-painted stripes sitting on top of the ceramic, as it would with glaze, the oxide used means they’re integrated into the clay, forming a more tactile, nuanced finish.
Wiltshire loved working with the oxide. “It has a beautiful, deep, inky quality when I’m brushing it on – it’s the part of the process I enjoyed the most,” she says. “I think that’s because it connects me to the tactile process of painting that I’m used to. I also prefer the finished surface to something like a traditional glaze as it’s more much integrated into the clay. And, if you get right up close and inspect the lines, you can trace the nuances in colour from a kind of dark burgundy to a pewter to a warm black.”
Table lamps – offered in small, medium and large sizes – stand on cylinder bases, with sombrero-like shades angled on top. These lamps are adjustable and customers can request different combinations of thick, thin or spaced stripes for the base and the shade. A similar shade crowns angled wall lights, which are finished with a brass wall mount. The round wall light, meanwhile, sits almost flush against the wall and a cylindrical design casts light both up and down, or in a single direction. Ceiling-mounted lights are similarly cylindrical, and every design has integrated LEDs.
The collaboration exemplifies Coco Flip’s ongoing pursuit of working with local craftspeople to make alluring furniture and lighting marked out by distinctive design and materiality.
