Design from Italy

Italian Design and Style

Shop for Italian Style, Design Furniture and Lighting at Stardust. Italy is the leading design country in the world and has infused everything it has touched with a sense of style. Discover Italy's contribution to the design world, with its rich creative output in a wide range of fields including the arts, fashion, lighting and architecture.

Sophia Loren. Italian Style Icon.

Italian Style

Forza Italia! Stardust presents a definitive testament to the original design-styling country of the world, Italy. Italian furniture design engenders a unique sense of passion in collectors and design enthusiasts everywhere. Design from Italy, be it a modernist table lamp from the 1950s or a space-age plastic Kartell chair from the 1960s, displays a confident sensual attraction like 'la donna più bella del mondo"... and can its creations can be found in museum collections such as the design collections of MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Centre Pompidou, the Vitra Design Museum and ADI. Italy is recognized as being a worldwide trendsetter and leader in design, food and fashion. Modern, elegant and truly timeless, from the perfect cup of moka, risotto allo zafferano to luxury cars. Italian design focuses on quality materials, great styling and beauty and it shows in everything they create.

Bocca della Verità at Via della Greca in Rome. Audrey and Gregory in Roman Holiday, 1953.

Italian Culture

The culture of Italy and of the Italian people has been shaped by geography and by profound historical events. Italy, where style and culture are deeply entwined, has perhaps the richest cultural heritage in the world. While vast differences separate metropolitan and urban areas, most people associate Italian culture with centers of art and architecture like Florenze, Venice and Rome while Milano remains the capital of design and fashion. An enviable list of significant icons varies widely. If we had to pick three of our personal favorites: the legend of "Rómulo y Remo and the Lupa Capitolina, Roma's Fontana di Trevi and La Bocca della Verità.

Italian Innovation in Design

The combination of continual attention to innovation and meticulous styling is one of Italy's main strengths. Architecture, fashion, technology, product design and Italian style are absolute requirements for any high end Italian design product and have lasting appeal. Notable Italian creations in the fields of modern lighting and furniture include the Artemide Tolomeo desk lamp designed by Michele De Lucchi and Giancarlo Fassina in 1986 for Artemide. Confident, poised, and every bit as capable as it looks, this lamp has become a classic of Italian lighting design. And we cannot pass up the opportunity to point you to the design by Achille Castiglioni for Flos, the grand master of Italian design who created the iconic Arco, Taccia, Fucsia and Parentesi lamps.

Elements of Italian Style. House at Lake Como interior with Furniture and Lighting from Stardust, made in Italy.

Award Winning Classics

Stardust has gathered for you some of the very best pieces of "molto bello" Italian design by the most distinguished names in modern Italian furniture- and lighting design, all of which are, of course, authentic. Its great names - Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Gino Sarfatti, Angelo Mangiarotti, Osvaldo Borsani and lately new designers such as Michele De Lucchi and Ferruccio Laviani - are associated with some of the most charismatic and exciting objects ever made and resonate the world over. Italians are masters in blending old with new in a tasteful way as seen in these images. A classic example of Lake Como style architecture provides the perfect setting for some modern accent pieces such as an Italian-made Artemide table lamp in mouth-blown glass or the contemporary Big table by Bonaldo as pictured below. The best design, is as relevant today as to the past, and will have enduring appeal to be enjoyed by many generations.

Stardust Interior Design at Lake Como Italy with Big Table and PH Lamps.

Stylish Furniture from Italy

Stardust presents an extraordinary collection of Italian design icons and brings together more than 500 of the most important Italian objects designed in the early 20th century to the present day, each one representing a key moment in Italian lighting- and furniture design. Each object features a succinct description of the item's history, design and specifications, and in most cases the unparalleled photographs of the photographers who share the same passion.

Italian Brands

Whether you are renovating an existing home, constructing a new modern house or when you are in need of some inspiration, we carry the best Italian brands & designers needed to decorate your home in style. We stock a superb selection of Italian designer furnishings and light fixtures. Each of them is a veritable design feast and will provide plenty of enjoyment while browsing our collection. Stardust offers Italian furniture and lighting by Artemide, Flos, Glas Italia, Luceplan, Leucos, Kartell and Martinelli Luce. Pictured below is a new Kartell design: the Kartell Ghost Buster side cabinet evokes the lines of classic furniture but with a contemporary accent in its transparency plastic. This beautiful piece of Italian design furniture by the legendary designer Philippe Starck complements any type of interior decor, be it classical, modern or contemporary.

A Far L'Amore Comincia Tu

Italians have mastered the art of living life to the fullest. The quest for a perfect balance between work and pleasure is redundant; Italians naturally enjoy both at the same time: life is a party!

La Grande Bellezza. Opening Scene with Rooftop Party, Paolo Sorrentino, 2013.