ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

City Girls Craft One-Off Lamps from Reclaimed Materials in London

architecture-design · 2026-09-29

The London-based design team City Girls, known as city.girls.xp, specializes in creating distinctive lighting fixtures from repurposed materials like coat hangers and lace. This duo from north London commenced their lamp-making journey two years ago, gathering discarded items both online and offline. Each lamp, with names such as Zoe or Pamela, showcases unique designs, including a floor lamp draped in jersey fabric and one featuring a base made from an old chrome chair. They favor items that display evidence of their creation. The name City Girls is inspired by Margaret Harkness's Victorian novel A City Girl. This past summer, interior designer Jermaine Gallacher presented Ten Lamps by City Girls at the Ragged School, London Bridge, during the London Design Festival.

Key facts

  • City Girls is an anonymous London design duo stylised as city.girls.xp, comprising two unnamed artists.
  • The pair started making lamps together two years ago after bonding over a shared love of old knickknacks.
  • They create one-off lighting from reclaimed lace, coat hangers and scale models scavenged from eBay, Facebook Marketplace and the side of the road.
  • Each finished lamp is named something like Pamela, Jean or Allegra to give it a distinct identity.
  • Zoe is a tall floor lamp with a gridded metal frame wrapped in old jersey fabric and embellished with goose feathers from a hat.
  • Sabine, their first working lamp, features a base from an old chrome chair fragment and a translucent fibreglass model boat shade.
  • Lola and Nina are boxy lamps cloaked in Glomesh sequins, a material also used on the metallic Raquel.
  • Virginia is made from old metal chair legs and crowned with a swan-like arched green head.
  • City Girls named themselves after Margaret Harkness's Victorian novel A City Girl, detailing 1880s London streets.
  • Over the summer, Jermaine Gallacher curated Ten Lamps by City Girls at the Ragged School, London Bridge.
  • During this month's London Design Festival, the second-ever Studio Iron show took place in South Kensington, curated by Isamaya Ffrench and featuring Andu Masebo, Barnaby Lewis and Jane Wright.

Entities

Artists

  • Margaret Harkness
  • Jermaine Gallacher
  • Isamaya Ffrench
  • Andu Masebo
  • Barnaby Lewis
  • Jane Wright

Institutions

  • City Girls
  • Ragged School
  • Studio Iron
  • eBay
  • Facebook Marketplace
  • Glomesh
  • Dezeen

Locations

  • London
  • United Kingdom
  • London Bridge
  • South Kensington

Sources