A Chandelier to Die For: Branko by Ipe Cavalli, Visionnaire Collection

Every once in a while, we like to write about something truly decadent. It’s the 3rings version of Colbert’s Platinum. In this installment, you’ll be wooed by the dark side. Visionnaire, the collection by Italian furniture company Ipe Cavalli, is full of mirrors and medallions, crests and crenellations, velvets and villas. Everything in the collection–from tufted sofas to shiny cabinets to crystal skulls–defines a lifestyle so sybaritic that it seems devoted to postmodern royalty.

You can imagine the likes of Angelina Jolie reclining on one of Visionnaire’s gleaming beds, some of which look straight out of a dungeon; or Javier Bardem sitting on one of the collection’s dramatic chairs, perhaps enjoying a sip of brandy amid the brass nails. Visionnaire contains a lot of black and white, a lot of reflective surfaces, a lot of luxury, and a touch of the unexpected. Ipe Cavalli, in business since the mid-twentieth century, has adapted and readapted throughout the decades–take a look at their history page to view film stills and photographs from the 1950s to the 1990s. But the Visionnaire Collection is perhaps their most grandiose invention in quite some time.

Branko Chandelier. Ipe Cavalli: Visionnaire Collection.

A Chandelier to Die For: Branko by Ipe Cavalli Visionnaire Collection

Branko Chandelier and Brendan Chandelier. Ipe Cavalli: Visionnaire Collection.

The company describes the fantastic, astral, imaginatively hedonistic collection in wonderfully purple language: “Visionnaire begins with the dignity of an ancient gate that opens onto an unusual world. The dark inspirations, the esoteric references, and a few decorative elements interpreted in every possible variable recur as the strong elements of the Visionnaire style. Visionnaire is the dream of a world that expresses a nearly-baroque decorative quest..” The collection’s lighting is particularly inventive, alluring, and curious: black dolphins dance from sconces and glowing teapots balance on pendants. In the vein of Visionnaire’s edgier work, the Branko Chandelier luxuriates in its own danger. Composed of 166 stainless steel knives that hang in a concentric circle, Branko plays with the sexy appeal of eating–it might have come straight from the set of Greenaway’s film The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. Though it retains a classic chandelier shape, Branko employs an unexpectedly quotidian material to create the pendant light’s sparkle. Like the Spectacle Chandelier by Stuart Haygarth, which is composed of 1,000 pairs of eyeglasses, the Branko Chandelier makes an otherworldly statement about objects taking on a life of their own. Here, Visionnaire is tempting us with the dangerous by making us see its sublime beauty.

The charm of a royal palace, the charm of the night.

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