Designer's Profile

Hello. This is Lux & Love, and I’m Carola, your host, designer and storyteller. Ever since I discovered that a shoebox plus crayons plus sellotape equals mini cinema, I’ve been making things. Big things, small things, weird things. My love of trawling antique shops and my eternal obsession with collecting the strange, the bizarrely beautiful and the curious, mixed with the imagery of dusty Catholic altars jammed full of votives, symbols and precious articles, has led to these collections. For 15 years I worked as a prop maker for opera houses and theatres, as a set and scenery builder for theme parks and events, and as a shop window designer for stores like Liberty and Selfridges. I still love all of that but I felt a calling to bring together my collections of unique and unusual charms and create themed works. I’m always on the look out for antique oddities in materials like bone, clay, gold and silver, and a high percentage of the brass I use is reclaimed from my local metal recycling centre. Starting life as kickplates, bar furniture and wall plaques, these are cut, re-cast, stamped, filed, polished and paired with (where possible) sparkling, faceted, semi-precious, vintage stones. The history behind objects and artefacts fascinates me, and I’m passionate about re-using them, turning them into colourful, one-off, wearable and, most importantly, beautiful pieces. I hope you find something here that you like. From Lux with love.