Shannon Koszyk for Currey and Company

Dear Diva Readers,

top: 5px; float: left; color: white; background: #781300; border: 1px solid darkkhaki; font-size: 60px; line-height: 50px; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 5px; font-family: times;”>Perhaps one of the things I love best about tours” target=”_blank”>my job (after getting to meet my uber cool clients and jetsetting weekly around Europe, taking said clients on antique buying tours) is getting the inside scoop from magazines and brands when they send their press releases and editorial schedules. I always feel “in the know” when I know what’s going on before the rest of the non-design world does.  While I don’t always write about what I see in these press releases, every once in a while one catches my eye that I can’t help but share.

Enter Shannon Koszyk and Currey & Company.   Currey & Co has long been on my radar for their distinctive designs, from lighting to interior furniture and accessories, and upon receiving the Currey & Co press release and I found myself SWOONING – note that’s ALL CAPS, BABY…SWOONING and sighing with delight over their new chandelier collection by Shannon Koszyk.

“Antiquity Chandelier” with 18 Lights, Wrought Iron/Brass/Crystal, Old Iron/Aged Brass Finish

Shannon Koszyk is a jewelry designer known for creating heirloom-inspired jewelry often seen on the collarbones of those on the cover of the Rolling Stones, so seeing her name with an interiors and lighting company caught my eye.

Steven Tyler wearing one of Koszyk’s designs – white bone rosary

She got her start jewelry designing when she quit smoking –  she wanted something to do with her hands – and began crafting regal jewelry from flea-market finds of rosaries, vintage European medals, semi-precious stones and luminous pearls.  With chandeliers, it also began with Shannon playing with design.  She ordered two different chandeliers from Currey & Co – but she put in a strange request to the company – “can I buy these chandeliers unadorned?”  The company sold her the pieces but were curious what she intended to do with them.  Conversations began and the next thing they knew she was mocking up chandelier designs for her favorite lighting company… and the rest is diva design design history.

Like her jewelry her chandelier designs are edgy. And I think they are going to fill a gap in the market for Rocker Chic for Home Décor.

Fortress Floor Candelabra, 7 lights, Wrought Iron/Brass/Crystal in a Black Iron/Aged Brass finish

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that I was smitten by Shannon’s chandelier design – Shannon describes herself as “loving all that is vintage”.  Her jewelry career began with some vintage medals she found in the Paris Flea Market.  She’s been religiously inspired by the classics. She’s sort of Coco Meets Ann Rice meets Madonna, the Virgin not the singer, though perhaps the singer works as well.

Just as Shannon’s work is about contrast, creating designs that merge luxe and grit, my personal decorating theory is antiques meet modern, the greater the discrepancy in the two the better the shine.  And shine these chandeliers and light fittings do… .

Coptic Chandelier, 4 Lights, Wrought Iron/Brass/Composite, Old Iron/Aged Brass Finish

The spot light is surely going to be on them this Fall at High Point Market, or at the upcoming Dallas Market at Design Finds or at the July Atlanta Market i n the J . Douglas Showroom, AmericasMart , Building 1, Suite 13A1.

Bonne Shopping,
The Antiques Diva®