Amanda Spence joined Currey & Company in February 2024 as director of accessories and portable lighting, a newly created position at the decorative accessories company. Spence began her career at Anthropologie and was one of the founding employees of the gardening store, Terrain, one of Home Accents Today‘s Retail Stars in 2025. She has also worked for West Elm and Napa Home & Garden where she used her brand-developing and curatorial buying skills to procure products from around the world.
Spence has been charged with shepherding the growth of Currey’s interior and garden accessories category, as well as its signature lamp business. In the leadup to this spring’s High Point Market, she took a few moments to speak with Home Accents Today about how Currey’s cordless lamp assortment has grown and evolved, and what sets it apart from its competitors.
You have a retail background. How does that influence the way you look at accessories and lamps, as well as Currey’s go-to-market strategy?
That is a great question. Due to my upbringing in retail, I always have the end consumer in mind when designing or developing a product. Our lamp and accessories collection at Currey is no different. My job is to introduce customers to pieces they didn’t know they couldn’t live without until they saw them. If a piece stirs something in me, I know it will be received similarly by our customers. If it doesn’t speak to me, then it’s not for Currey!
Once it passes that test, I begin to muse about how and where it is used in a person’s home or utilized in a hotel’s design. These are the stories I share with our sales representatives during market, as well as with the buyers I interact with at shows. The passion behind the product becomes an energy I can pass along to them, and energy is contagious!
Currey introduced its first cordless lamp collection two years ago. How has the collection evolved since then?
The collection has been growing exponentially since launch. This spring’s introductions will effectively double our assortment. The excitement surrounding cordless lights has been contagious and widespread. They’ve literally gone viral. This has opened myriad avenues for their design and fabrication. At this point, I’m not letting technology hold me back. If we can engineer a cordless lamp that illuminates beautifully, I will do so without being beholden to technologies we introduced previously.
I’ve expanded materials and techniques as much as possible, including art glass, tole, rattan, optic crystal, travertine, alabaster and much more. At Currey, we are known for our beautiful materials, and I will continue to play to those strengths.
As cordless lamps expand beyond small sizes, does that open design possibilities or introduce different tech specifications? Or both?
Absolutely, both. This spring, we will introduce both cordless floor lamps and full-size table lamps. We have engineered a taller, brighter bulb that projects more light and enables the functionality of a larger lamp, while remaining fully portable. I’ve also used LED-integrated bulbs in some of our new cordless designs, giving them an even more uniform glow. Both of these technologies expand the usefulness of larger-scale cordless lamps.
What do retailers most want to know when discussing cordless lamps? Do they have concerns, and how do you address them?
Retailers are most interested in the basics: how long it takes to charge, how long it stays charged, how bright it gets, etc. Their concern lies in functionality rather than visual design. They know we’ve already got the design elements nailed.
This is a very hot category. How do you distinguish yourself from your competitors in this regard?
Materials and variety of design. I’ve made it very clear to my design team that there are no limitations on cordless lamps. They can be highly functional pieces or highly decorative; intended for a library desk, a bookcase or used as an objet on a coffee table. I want our cordless collection to be as innovative and surprising as our Currey accessories. Each piece should be conversational and spark interest in both functionality and design. The way you do that is to delight through materials and form, and I’m on a mission to do so!
