Having a Glow-Up
Each month, ELLE DECOR asks an artisan to create a unique item for us. At the end of the year, these pieces will be auctioned off to benefit Housing Works.
It could come as a shock to learn that the very polished Bubble Chandelier by Pelle Designs started out as a DIY project that founder Jean Pelle submitted to ReadyMade magazine back in 2008. Since then, she has established herself as a maker of refined and striking fixtures. Each one is composed of elegant globes handmade in Vermont by glassblowers, some with motifs painted by Pelle herself. In this particular iteration, Pelle was transfixed by the various parts of a fennel plant she spotted on a trip to upstate New York. She isolated and abstracted the plant’s form into patterns that adorn the glass bulbs on this one-of-a-kind 64-inch chandelier. “The stalk and pinnate structure became a pattern resembling wispy dandelion seeds floating in the air; the round yellow flowers are represented by a collection of gold dots and curved lines,” Pelle says. “I kept the leaves looking as feathery as possible, even using my own hair to paint them.” The result is a mesmerizing interpretation of the plant’s component parts on opalescent glass, accented with 24-karat gold.
