s.luce Echos 12-light pendant lamp 200 cm, brown glass, black suspension, Ø 18/25 cm

Echos in its twelve-light form is a set of twelve hand-blown brown glass shades hanging on black cords from a single black canopy shaped as an elongated plate. The shades carry horizontal, wave-like ripples, come here in two sizes at once, and are arranged in three rows and at differing heights.

Two shade sizes in one set

The maker lists two glass diameters for this fitting — 18 and 25 cm — at heights of 20 and 28 cm. These are not variants to choose between but the composition of one set: shades of both sizes arrive in the box, and together with the differing cord lengths they produce the irregular arrangement seen in the photograph.

The glass is blown by hand, so wall thickness and the pattern of the ripples do not repeat to the millimetre between shades. The brown tone is translucent: with a lamp lit its shape shows through the glass, so the light source here is a visible element rather than a hidden one.

How big it is and how it is fixed

The canopy measures 200 × 50 cm at 5 cm thick, and it is its outline rather than the spacing of the shades that is transferred to the ceiling before drilling — two metres of plate mean planning the place above the table earlier than a round rose would. All twelve points are fed from one ceiling outlet.

The standard cord length is 150 cm, and the maker states the cord is shortened by the installer during fitting, so the drop is set to the room height on site. The fitting is built to protection class I, so an earth conductor has to reach the ceiling box.

Lamps and light

The shades hold E27 lampholders — twelve of them, each rated to 40 W. No lamps are supplied, so they have to be budgeted for and bought twelve at a time. At this number the choice of lamp weighs more than usual: twelve 40 W incandescent bulbs come to nearly half a kilowatt, while LED equivalents reach a similar brightness on somewhere between ten and twenty watts in total.

Dimming is possible, but only through dimmable lamps — the fitting itself carries neither a controller nor a built-in driver.