Since I was a child
I used to craft lamps and candle holders using unusual materials for that time (the 1980s) chalk, copper, lead enriched with sea glass-stones found on the Ionian coast where I grew up.
A passion for light that slowly has been growing and completed with notes of design together with a thirst for knowledge about materials and their respective use and behavior.
However, there comes a time when life, for obvious reasons of survival, detaches you from your passions.
the long of the time
In 1989, I left Calabria and moved to Turin, where I have been hired as a designer in the Morelli Picentino Associati architecture studio and at the same time I attended the Guarino Guarini Institute. During the years spent in Piemonte, I designed and produced some pendant- and some floor lamps.
In 1999, I was offered to be technical director of a company developing a chain of restaurants with traditional Italian cuisine.
In the following seven years I supervised plenty of construction sites, getting on and off from planes, cars and trains, obviously always accompanied by my trolley and my work bag.
In 2006 I have been offered the same position but in a different sector (residential/hotel) in Romania, I accepted and continued with life as usual until my son Riccardo was born in 2010.
A few months after his birth, I realized that I am unable to devote the time to my son that every father, in my opinion, should devote to his children. I went on breaks in my activity in order to have time to think about what should be the further steps in my working life.
After a few days of thoughts the decision was taken; the time had come for a change: to professionalize my lifelong passion, light, takes shape.
I founded CristofaroLuce and began my journey. Unfortunately, the market in the country where I live is very brand-oriented and underestimates beauty of unknown origin. Therefore, in order to survive, I began to offer custom lighting systems, enjoying great success and acquiring important international brands as clients. However, it is not what I dreamed of.
In 2022 my daughter Carolina was born and here the unthinkable happened, I stepped back from the Romanian market as far as custom projects are concerned and I started to develop all my creations that I have conceived and designed over the years.
I began a repositioning operation and after months of agony my creations started to be successful throughout Europe and the United States.
The courage to start again, coupled with a fair dose of recklessness, has never abandoned me and I will remain the hard-headed Calabrese I always was, until the end.
This courage has led me to meet new people who have given my passion the right added value, Alisa, Paolo, Giovanna, Adela, Simona, Anthony, Diego, Vlad, Francesca have made me understand and reinforced in the idea that the path I have taken is the right one.
In the last while I have also realized something more about myself! and that is that what I do is not to make light (anyone can screw in a light bulb) but an ambitious desire which is to rule the shadows.
Tommaso Cristofaro
