Lighting brand Plumen is to cease production of its award-winning light bulbs, and is looking for a buyer. Co-founder Nicolas Roope spoke to Dezeen about the brand's journey.
The move comes twelve years after the design-led brand first unveiled concepts for a new type of energy-saving lighting product on Dezeen, and nine years after its first product went on sale.
Since then the small London-based company, co-founded by Roope and entrepreneur Michael-George Hemus, has transformed the lighting industry and sold over a million products. Turnover is over £1 million per year.
In 2018 Plumen released an LED version of the 001 light bulb
Its launch product, the Plumen 001, was the first compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) designed to be put on show rather than hidden away. "The low-energy light bulb wasn't desirable, Roope told Dezeen. "It was seen as a necessary evil, a compromise."
"The Plumen 001 changed that," he added. "Suddenly, people were talking positively about a compact fluorescent light bulb, it was winning awards and being proudly displayed rather than hidden away. It was a big shift which made the industry take notice."
Nicolas Roope is the co-founder of Plumen
Designed by Samuel Wilkinson and initially manufactured under the brand name Hulger, the Plumen 001 was named Design of the Year in 2011. It was also added to the permanent collection at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
However CFL technology was soon to be superseded by LED, wh...