Isabella Garbagnati, ‘Diana’console for Blend Roma, Italy, 2023

“Light, objects and their details, become an expression of a continuous movement between past and present. It is the search and discovery of things from the past to filter them through the lens of contemporaneity that unites the language of each piece.”

Isabella Garbagnati, ‘Diana’console for Blend Roma, Italy, 2023


Growing up, Isabella thrived on a never-ending diet of design. Her early years were greatly influenced by her grandfather, an architect who worked in Milan after the Second World War alongside his favourite cousin, Gio’ Ponti.

After earning a degree in Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano with a dissertation in French, she and her tabby cat Mini left Italy to settle in Paris, where they lived for 10 years. During that time she worked as an architect for the Ateliers Jean Nouvel on the Louvre Abu Dhabi project.

Always attracted by materials, one day Isabella experienced a jolt that set her on an exciting new path: her gaze was drawn to a 1920s lamp by the French designer Jacques Le Chevallier in a gallery on rue de Seine, and she decided to reproduce it. Then came the serendipitous discovery of a hodgepodge – almost an archive – of long-forgotten materials in the 3rd Arrondissement: old resins, leftover polymers and much more. A storehouse chock-full of materials that were gathering dust, including translucent fibreglass sheeting oxidised by the passing of time. Isabella ingeniously gave these materials a new lease of life...

This, then, is the backdrop for her creations, amid the avenues and galleries of Paris, where dreams merge seamlessly into reality. A melding of history from the 30s to the 60s that Isabella brought to life. Her research and painstaking attention to detail are the mainstays, the very foundations underpinning her designs.

Several of Isabella’s lamps were put on display in Saint Germain des Pres, at Galerie Baxter, a boutique selling hand-made frames and prints. Her lamps drew much interest, soon attracting the attention of Florence Lopez, a successful antiques dealer, who took Isabella under her wing and commissioned custom-made lamps for clients and her show room in Rue du Dragon in Paris.

In 2018-2019 Isabella’s work appeared at SaloneSatellite, the emerging designer showcase staged during Milan’s prestigious Furniture Show, with Luminiere, a limited-edition series of library lamps. Shortly after contacting Dimoregallery she created a special series of seven lamps: the Starlight Collection. With her designs conjuring up faraway lands, Isabella sought inspiration from the stars, as if the seven Starlight lamps could somehow guide the observer.

Today Isabella lives and works in Milan, but has retained her close ties with Paris. She and Stefania Loschi have come together to open "Ocra Studio". The two friends met in Paris, where they were neighbours who shared the same passion for design. They now work side by side and have created a special collection for DIMOREGALLERY. To celebrate their first meeting, the collection is named after Paris’s Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe.