Industry’s guiding light celebrates 10 years of success

A YORKSHIRE-based lighting firm – which is the only company to offer customers the option to design and configure their own bespoke light fitting – is celebrating 10 years of success as the “unstoppable trend” of industry aesthetics continues to thrive.

FactoryLux originally started as a salvaging company, rescuing and restoring industrial light fittings from redundant factories and mills and bringing them to market.

But as the fashion and technology evolved, industrial lighting became desirable to big brands and that was where founder, Stanley Wilson found his niche.

He said: “Some of our bigger customers like Levi’s and Marks & Spencer’s needed a predictable supply of products, so we got into manufacturing, making lighting that’s made to the exact same specification as the original.”

After splitting off and becoming a manufacturer, FactoryLux converted a former trouser factory in Hebden Bridge into a modern, open plan working space where the entirety of each light is made from start to finish.

“The materials we work with and some of the processes we use are very old fashioned, but the processes are absolutely state of the art. Within the lights that we manufacturer there’s this juxtaposition between something that’s extremely old and tactile, but inside there’s something that’s state of the art, super modern and efficient.” Stanley added.

But that’s not the only state of the art technology the brand offers, as customers, regardless of their profession, can create their own lights using the website’s configurator, which boasts over 100million different combinations.

With the ‘Made For You’ option, the customer can choose everything from the cable colour to the shape of the light bulb and have their creation manufactured the same day in the factory.

Stanley said: “Because we’ve got a relatively small scale factory that’s relatively close to our customer base, we’re very adept at offering options and variants to match people’s needs.

“The sense of quality in the product and within the service behind it allows us to compete with companies offering much cheaper products but much less quality and much less configurability. It’s a small niche but in that niche, we can stay alive.”

FactoryLux will also be enhancing the ‘Made For You’ option further with its launch of a new ‘online-in-store experience’ which will see all of the configurable parts showcased at Heal’s designer furniture and lighting store in London.

Currently, to ensure the company’s presence in the capital city, FactoryLux has its own mobile specification and workshop unit which has helped the company to create and strengthen international links as well.

Stanley said: “London is a global hub for lighting design, but it’s an extremely expensive place to get premises and people, so the van is the perfect solution, it allows us to be in London, with everything in it from the factory and space to invite designers into to come aboard and get a real feel for the products.

“We’ve just got back from Berlin and I think with that we set the scene for expansion of Factorylux certainly in Europe if not beyond.”