Putting cords in the shade: Sustainable, dimmable and beautiful

Sway lamp designed by Nick Rennie from Made by Pen

My legendary relative, Flora Vere O’Brien, was a little bit eccentric. She represented Ireland as a poet and an artist in the 1948 Olympics, but lived very simply at home.

She wore a horse-rug, secured across her chest by a kilt pin, and had a single light bulb to illuminate her cottage. The bulb was on a very long flex and she used to carry it around with her to light the room she was in. When people came to visit, they were offered the light bulb to take upstairs, so they could read in bed.

Flora's habits were formed in the days of oil lamps and candle but, from another perspective, she was ahead of her time. Portable lighting is something we’re going to be hearing a lot more about in 2021.

A portable lamp is lit with an LED bulb and charged through a USB socket. Until a few short years ago, the only available portable lighting were children's night lights and camping lamps, usually with a mood-killing glare. Now, all the big lighting design companies are bringing out portable lamps.

The FollowMe table lamp by Marset from Eames Lighting

"Portable lighting is very sexy," says Shane Crowley of Eames Lighting in Tramore, Co Waterford. "It's not big business yet, but it's going to be."

The advantages are manifold. Portable table lamps can be used in the house or outdoors. They rate very high on sustainability. Most are dimmable and the best of them produce a truly beautiful light. "There's huge potential," Crowley says. "We’re very excited about portable lighting."

I am too. I have nothing positive to say about flexes. They’re a trip hazard. They look dreadful in photographs. And I once cut through one by accident (there was a bang, but I lived to tell the tale).

Dipping Light by Jordi Canudas from Eames Lighting

On a less dramatic note, flexes are never the right length and plug sockets are never in the right place, so lamps are not where you want them to be either. I want to live in a cordless world.

Seriously. If you don't believe me, put a normal lamp on a table in the centre of a busy room and plug it into the nearest socket. Try not to hurt (a) yourself or (b) the lamp.

In Ireland, we’re kind of used to flexes. "We like plugs and sockets," Crowley says. "We like things to be stationery. You see people moving house and they’d almost take over the couch and the lamp from the previous tenant.

Humble One table lamp from Lime Lace

"On the Continent, they don't see things like that. They want to change the lighting and they’re not going to rewire the building, so they buy portable lamps and put them exactly where they want them to be."

The entry point to portable lighting is low. Ikea's Hårte LED work lamp costs €17. It's an underwhelming piece of kit that looks like a folded piece of piping with an adjustable neck. You can charge it from the USB port on your computer.

Fatboy Bolleke lamp

For a little more solidity, Fatboy has produced a range of accessibly priced portable lamps. "They’re a bit Lego-y," Crowley says. "But they’re good novelty lights that would appeal to a young couple with a few quid."

Some are designed primarily for outdoor use. The spherical Bolleke lamp (€79) resembles a fishing buoy and comes with a silicone loop so you can hang it from a tree. The battery life is eight to 20 hours. Others are indoor table lamps.

The Edison (€65) is made from moulded plastic in the shape of a classic table lamp. The Tjoepke (€55) is a tube-shaped light that combines a camping aesthetic with decent quality of light.

The Fatboy Transloetje table lamp

Higher up the food chain, designs become much more elegant. So do the prices. Crowley's personal favourite is the Float Portable Lamp from Axolight (€242 from Eames Lighting), mainly for the sheer coolness of the design.

The lamp itself looks like an upside down pasta bowl, 13.5cm in diameter. In the centre is a hole so you can place it over the neck of a bottle of wine, creating an instant table lamp.

You can also, with various fittings, tie it to the ceiling or the wall. With the aid of a short stand, it's a table lamp. With a long one, it's a floor lamp. "It's very expensive for what it is," Crowley admits. He thinks that high-end portable lamps will come down in price once they become more popular.

Artemide Come Together Lamp from Eames Lighting

The Come Together Portable Table Lamp from Artemide looks like a glass tube with a pinched waist. It's 26.9cm high and costs €200. You’re paying for the famous brand, and the way that it looks, but also for measurable qualities like battery life and the quality of the light.

"The big lighting companies have the colour temperature nailed," Crowley says. Whatever about the fitting, beautiful light is life-enhancing. To my mind, it's worth paying for.

For a really fancy present — Valentine's Day, maybe — the deceptively simple portable UMA Sound Lantern (€579.59 from Eames Lighting) is also a Bluetooth speaker. It looks like a lantern, talks to your phone or any other mobile device, and has touch-sensitive volume control.

Giravolta lamp from Nedgis

This is a lot to pay for a gadget, however pretty and clever, but it's only a matter of time before sound lanterns filter down to the high street. These are the boom boxes of the future. In 10 years or so, we’ll all have them. Ikea, in fairness, has tried something similar.

The Symfonisk table lamp (€179) has an integrated WiFi speaker, but it's neither designed to be carried around nor for outdoor use.

Portable floor lamps are still a little niche. The Australian company Made by Pen is ahead of the game with Nick Rennie's elegant Sway lamp. It's a LED globe on a slender stem which terminates in a larger, weighted globe. This is based on the same principle as Weebles, a 1970s childhood toy with a rounded base. When you push them over, they bounce back.

The Sway lamp also works in this way, promising endless fun as well as illumination and interesting design. It's not cheap at around €520, but you’ll need to talk to the team at Made by Pen about getting it sent over to Ireland.

Meanwhile, Irish design mavens are getting excited about portable table lamps. "We got 10 of them into the shop in November," says Helle Moyna of Nordic Elements. "They just went! So we ordered some more. They went too! Ever since then, they’ve been flying out the door."

Nordic Elements Como lamp by &Tradition

The portable lamps Nordic Elements has are by the Danish brand, &Tradition, purveyors of interesting design at not-too-fancy prices. The lamps (€165 each) come in various shapes and sizes, all dimmable to three different settings and with between 10 and 12 hours of battery life.

"They’re fantastic for bookshelves or dining tables, or outdoors," Moyna says. "Basically, they work in places where there is no plug."

See eameslighting.com, nordicelements.com and madebypen.com.