“There are some homes that lend themselves to neon – warehouse conversions with exposed brick walls look amazing with neon. We live in one in Ealing, and we have neon in almost every room.”
November 30, 2020
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
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Step in Bag and Bones, a brand new company set up by Gigi and Cavanagh Foyle. The sisters, with backgrounds in health research and aviation law respectively, have seen the light. Neon, that is.
Gigi remembers visiting God’s Own Junkyard: “I would visit at the weekends and obsess over it all. It’s like a stimulus, it’s overpowering and beautiful to look at.” Their neon lights aren’t neon at all, but LED lights in flexible tubing in different colours. This means that the lights use just a fraction of the energy that normal neon lights use, and are just as bright and elaborate.
“Our lights work really well at home – even in the nursery because they don’t break,” says Foyle, who was interested in green energy as a researcher.
Foyle’s designs are simple line drawings of lips, a flamingo and a pair of shapely legs in the style of pin-up girls. Neon lights have to be simple out of necessity, otherwise they become extortionate to create and run. “I just like clean lines, and obviously as it’s glowing neon you have to be a bit pared down.
Bag and Bones’s designs are everyday, too, and take neon away from the red light district. Paper aeroplanes, blue elephants and swallows are lit up and make a great night light for a child’s room.
“It works because of the simple design, and I make it into the colour scheme and match it to details such as the curtains. Blue is relaxing so I put that in the kids’ room, and I put red in the kitchen because it lends a party atmosphere,” Foyle says.
While she has used neon sparingly in her home, making it the focal point, “some people put it all together and it seems to work”, she says. Bag and Bones was launched just five weeks ago, but has already found a large following on Instagram and kitted out the dance floor at music festival Wilderness.
You can also commission the company to make your own: one man has asked for the words “marry me” to pop the question.
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