Page 64 - enLIGHTenment - November 2017

Spotlight

on Uplight

The Nabila

pendant by
Tooy of Italy.

Linda Longo, Editorial Director of top lighting retail stores that were not familiar with

the product. This is how I began building strong
EnLIGHTenment Magazine, sat down
relationships in the lighting industry and learning
about the many challenges that European lighting
with David Weisinger, founder of
products have to overcome to penetrate the U.S.
market.
Uplight Group, to learn more about
I continued to lead and grow Studio Italia Design

the exclusive European designs he and remained active in sales, marketing and opera-
tions for 13 years, until a few months back when

brings to the American market.
we ended our relationship and I founded Uplight
Group, which has the exclusive distribution for

several up-and-coming lighting brands.

LL: HoW HaS THe markeT cHanGeD From

LInDa LonGo: HoW DID you enTer THe WHen you Were InTroDucInG STuDIo ITaLIa
LIGHTInG InDuSTry?
DeSIGnS To THe u.S. markeT?

DAVID WEISINGER: I started by becoming the ex- DW: There are two main changes in my opinion:

clusive distributor for the Italian brand Studio Italia The adoption of LED technology and the growth
Design in 2004. We founded Studio Italia Design of e-commerce.

USA, quickly set up a small o ce and warehouse When we started, over 90 percent of our line
in Miami, and began building the business for this was using halogen lamps, mainly G9 and GU10.

li le-known brand in the USA.
These are not energy-e cient and created heat

Some of the challenges we had to overcome issues. We had some uorescent options, but they
were ge ing the product UL-listed and building a had issues with dimmability which is an important

sales force to reach architects and designers na- factor in decorative lighting. Over the years, we saw
tionwide. We also had to introduce the line to the
the evolution of LEDs and how this phenomenon

62 enLIGHTenment magazine | november 2017
www.enlightenmentmag.com