Your humble editor sat down with Jan Vingerhoets, CEO,  Flos, USA at our studio at Light + Building in Frankfurt. 

Randy:  Tell us a little about Flos USA and the direction you are headed. 

Jan:  Flos USA is a subsitary of Flos which was founded over 50 years ago.   Initially Flos focused much on decorative product and we have had very strong designers over the years.  I started with Flos USA about six-and-a-half years ago and in America we were known for decorative product.   After two years I saw the importance of our architectural specification within Flos International.  While we were doing OK in the US, we were always looking for new opportunities.  I believe that if you want to do something you want to do it well, which means you have to have the necessary specifications such as UL.  We want to under-promise and over-deliver.  We want to be an EU company from a design perspective, but an American company regarding expectations.  We developed a good team, but something was missing and we wanted to assemble and produce locally… 

Randy: … and that is where Lukas comes in?

Jan:  Yes, Lukas is based in Long Island City, NY and specialized in custom lighting.  We do get requests especially on retail and the hospitality side for custom products.  Obviously we do custom products in Italy, but by the time you design and produce in Italy, and then ship to the US,  it can be very time consuming.  So we saw the opportunity to improve with Lukas.

Randy:  When did you purchase Lukas?

Jan:  They were acquired late last year and fully purchased in December. What is quite exceptional today is that we offer decorative, icon pieces, architectural products that are exceptional,  and now we can also offer custom products.  And it is a full scale offer.   The Lukas acquisition gave us speed to market and flexibility. 

Randy:  Typically for custom jobs that are designed and manufactured in Italy, wouldn’t you end up having to fly them over and killing your margin? 

Jan:  Sometimes.  Some products are still hand made and only a few companies have this expertise, like mouth-blown glass.   Only a few companies can do that.  But we can build most of the product locally now. 

Randy:  Tell us a little about your stand at L+B and what you are displaying.

Jan:  We are in Hall 3.1, Stand B30 and the booth is quite different from our neighbors as it was designed by Vincent Van Duysen the Belgian architect.  We met him, there was a strong synergy, an exchange of ideas which turned into product design.   Our booth is almost like a house, as it is very beautiful and you see the products in a natural environment. It is really a beautifully designed stand.

Randy:  Jim Toole explained the Running Magnet product to me.  Tell our audience about it. 

Jan:  It’s one of our most exciting products in that environment in the last few years.  It is an LED extrusion that works within a magnet, so you can move the product around, which works well in retail, where the layout always changes.   Now you just unplug it and plug it back in. 

Randy:  Is the product patented? 

Jan:  Yes, we have patents, and the development process is quite difficult.  We have UL and it is very difficult to get UL on magnets, because restrictions of magnets are much stronger in the US than in EU.  Whenever we develop a product we have the US in mind. 

Randy:  How important are controls in the business? 

Jan:  We see in the US that there are controls, but still no standards. Until there are standards, we don’t see demand on our decorative lights.  WE do have some lights that can be controlled by a smart phone, but we really always want to have an on/off switch to keep things simple.