Couture — Chapel Hill-style

Designer Alexander Julian launched a licensed lighting collection with Frederick Cooper at the October High Point market. The Chapel Hill, N.C.-born and bred designer, best known for his eponymously named menswear collection featuring colorful, smart-yet-slightly preppy styling, has existing home collections with The Manchester Furniture Group, Dan River, Decor-Rest, Miresco and Springs. Spotlighting his own fabrics from American Silk, the exquisitely tailored line of table and floor lamps bears the label of the Alexander Julian Couture Collection.

"This is couture in two senses of the word," Julian said. "First, the collection uses the best fabrics and connotes the top level of design, and, second, every shape is available in every shade."

"Growing up in Chapel Hill, Alex defined men's fashion," said Frederick Cooper's Christopher Mumford, another born and bred Tar Heel. A serendipitous meeting in their former hometown led both men to agree not only that all roads lead back to Franklin Street (Chapel Hill's version of Main Street), but also to a shared design viewpoint of stunning, surprising accents. "The collection will give interior designers a chance to really design by mixing and matching," Mumford explained.

The collection will coordinate — without matching — with his existing furniture and rug collections. "I am endeavoring to make it easy for people to decorate in an unstudied way," Julian said. "This is a chance for us to extend into sculpture. The fabric shades are important, but only a small part of what we will do."

Besides Julian's signature fabrics, the lamps will blend materials ranging from cloisonné, raku, precious stones and glass, to mixed mediums, such as wood and metals, and special finishes.

"I've asked for my tombstone to be inscribed like a multiple-choice quiz: E, for all of the above," Julian quipped. "That's the focus for the lamps."

Retail prices range from $295 to $395 for table lamps, with floor lamps averaging about $875.

Alexander Julian ties a necktie on the base of the lamp bearing a shade inspired by his fashion designs.

This lamp, and others in the new collection, was designed to relate to other Alexander Julian licensed lines across product categories.