Marc Pascal: A Most Illuminating Experience

Standing out from the crowd at the Milan furniture fair is a bit like vying for attention on the red carpet at the Academy Awards.

Unless you're a big-name designer such as Philippe Starck - who this year managed to hog the limelight even more than usual with his provocative lamp collection modelled on guns - it can be difficult to get noticed, no matter how inventive, exciting or unique your product is.

While exhibiting at the 1991 fair certainly worked wonders for Sydney's Marc Newson, who has since become an international brand-name designer, for many Australian designers, the Milan "experience" is about keeping up to date with what's happening in industrial and product design.

Melbourne lighting designer Marc Pascal is therefore unfazed that his first trip to Milan in April - to exhibit his wares in a sponsored gallery event aligned with the fair - has so far failed to translate into a lucrative manufacturing contract with a high-profile European company.

For Pascal, who has worked as a designer-maker for the past 12 years, exhibiting at Milan "after years of procrastination" was also about "reaffirming my belief in myself as a designer".

"I came back home feeling I was on the right track," he says. "I'm keenly anticipating my next product, which has been simmering in the background and is now demanding actio

more: theage.com.au/news/Arts/A-most-illuminating-experi (341)

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