—by Hayley Curnow.
Nicci Kavals, founder and creative director of internationally acclaimed lighting studio, Articolo, reflects on the evolution of her brand, its challenges and triumphs, and her recent foray into furniture design.
Fearlessness, balanced by a strong sense of self-awareness, has seen Melbourne designer Nicci Kavals masterfully guide her lighting practice, Articolo, into a distinctive luxury brand with global resonance. Driven by the pursuit to celebrate ‘the art of light,’ the studio is renowned for its artisanal interior and exterior lighting pieces, uniquely presented in gallerylike showrooms in Melbourne and New York.
Reflecting on her journey since founding Articolo in 2010, Kavals— a former food stylist and magazine editor—humbly chalks opportunities down to good fortune, yet perhaps more accurately, they’re a mark of her adaptability and courage. After all, Articolo’s first fitting was inspired by Kavals incredulously turning a glass vase on its head and musing: “perhaps we could get into lighting?”
Kavals recalls that moment with clarity. After forecasting the rise of tinted glass drinkware, she had established a leading glassware company, Bribe—then the GFC hit. “We were at our trade stand at Maison & Objet in 2010 and the commitment to stock we were holding for department store giants was plummeting. I was feeling anxious about the future of the business and became irreverent,” Kavals concedes. What started as a throwaway idea to repurpose the glassware soon had legs, marking the next phase of Kavals’ global design career.
At the time, Kavals had observed a few boutique lighting studios emerging, such as Apparatus and Lindsey Adelman, “but there weren’t any decorative lighting studios in Australia doing things differently,” she says. When Kavals returned to Melbourne, she developed Articolo’s first piece, the Lumi table light, which is still held in the studio’s range today. The collection organically expanded as specifiers requested matching wall sconces and pendants, to which Kavals eagerly agreed.
In those early days, Articolo occupied a tiny space—formerly a garage—behind a fruit and vegetable shop on Toorak Road. Digital design platform, Yellowtrace, published a feature on Kavals and her nascent studio, which she says “immediately sparked international enquiries and propelled the business forward.” After opening its official showroom in Richmond, designed by close friend and collaborator, David Goss of Studio Goss, 2019 became a turning point for the brand, marked by its inaugural Milan Design Week presentation.
True to style, Kavals confidently committed to a large stand at Milan’s Salone del Mobile trade show and enlisted Studio Goss to design an elegant, understated space that held Articolo’s handcrafted fittings with a gallery-like reverence—Goss’ design taking home the 2020 Australian Interior Design Award for Installation Design and Best International project. “It was courageous because it cost a lot and we had no presence in the US at that point,” reflects Kavals. A condition that was soon to change.
From Milan, Kavals recalls “whizzing across the ocean to New York” for the brand’s fourth ICFF design fair in New York. Within weeks, the studio opened its first showroom there— a compact space in the iconic Flatiron District, opposite Madison Square Park. “It was a terribly old, 13-storey building that had been passed down over four or five generations,” recalls Kavals. “We were still muddling through a bird’s nest of wiring at 4AM the night before opening. But we figured it out, opened the showroom, then did New York Design Week.”
Kavals says the intensity of this period was exhausting yet invigorating—and planted the first seed for Articolo’s furniture collection. “I designed a table for the New York space thinking I’d like to get into furniture design someday,” she recalls. Due to its size, the table had to be flat-packed and assembled by a white glove service, making Kavals question the practicalities of finding reputable assembly services globally. “I decided then that designing large furniture pieces didn’t make sense for Articolo, and it would be very hard to penetrate and make a difference, so I chewed on it for a few years,” she says.
Soon after, New York was decimated by Covid, and it wasn’t until 2022 that Kavals was able to return. In that time, US sales had become stronger than Australia and the rest of world combined, which encouraged Kavals to seek an additional Articolo outpost in LA. “We signed the lease on a great space on Robertson Ave, just across from The Ivy, which sadly didn’t progress,” she admits. While she’d planned to leave the New York showroom as it was, on arrival, Kavals soon changed her mind. “The brand had grown so much from that small room, so we found a larger space in an adjacent building to better showcase our range.”
This New York atelier proudly occupies the first floor of the historic Townsend Building, affording street diners and passers-by direct views to Articolo’s delicate handmade fittings. Working with Studio Goss, the studio reinstated the 1890s-built brick building’s original decorative features, which had been clouded by decades of cumulative renovations and additions. Its grand circular columns, standing over four metres, are now complemented by rounded freestanding walls that frame each collection as a series of evocative vignettes. “David really understands our brand. Each space has its own character that honours the architecture and city but has a thread of softness and texture that feels inherently Articolo,” muses Kavals.
A few years later, Kavals collaborated with Studio Goss on the design of her Cape Schanck home, and found herself struggling to source unique, small furniture pieces. Suddenly, the thought of designing her own resurfaced. “I wanted to create pieces that felt like haute couture to layer the home with,” she explains. Agreeing to an ambitious launch date to coincide with Milan Design Week 2024, Kavals cajoled and batted her eyelids until a Melbourne furniture maker agreed to produce 21 pieces in just five weeks— an applaudable feat, particularly given Kavals’ keen eye for quality craftsmanship. The manufacturing process was underscored by trust, close collaboration, and compromise: “we pivoted the whole way but didn’t simplify anything—in fact, the product got better.”
Articolo’s debut furniture release is unified by Kavals’ curiosity in form and materials. “I was intrigued to see each piece’s personality change as I changed its materiality,” Kavals reveals. The Fin Table, for example, feels refined and elegant in its dark timber and bronze iteration, heavy and sculptural in burnished brass, and in straw marquetry—produced in collaboration with French artisan, Arthur Seigneur—different again. These enduring materials express Kavals’ interest in design that has a story. “Things can be precious and have a life of their own. Mass production sanitises design and there’s romance in individuality,” she quips.
This enduring ethos is a throughline for the brand, echoed in its refined products, commitment to local manufacturing, and inclusive team spirit. With her sights still set on a showroom in LA, then Dallas, Kavals is next keen for Articolo to expand into Europe. If the legacy she has created thus far is anything to go by, the world is indeed her oyster. “My next goal is to develop luxury, top-of-table accessories, a home fragrance in partnership with Acqua di Parma, and a layer of food and wine for the showrooms. Maybe one day we’ll design an Articolo boutique hotel,” she muses. “lt’s a lofty dream, but then again, so was all of this, once.”