Since 1996, Meteor Lights designs and fabricates whipstitched, hand-painted, hand-assembled “fiberglass”* drum lampshades, mid-century modern light fixtures, and retro pendant lamps, bringing classic ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s Americana lighting design to your home or business. Our hand-stained drum and tiered parchment lampshades also look great with streamline moderne, tiki, vintage western, googie/biomorphic, and Danish Modern styles, as well as with midcentury/modern-influenced contemporary lighting design.
*Our hand-dyed Lumicel fiberglass-alternative lamp shade parchment is made from recycled water bottles, not fiberglass.
Our colorful lamps, fiberglass lampshades, and MCM pendant light fixtures suit a wide range of residential and commercial lighting, from ’40s and ’50s Eames-era Americana to contemporary and modern “midmod” styles influenced by classic post-war industrial design. We make our shades and pendant lamps by hand, “the old-fashioned modern way.” Our colors and patterns are hand-applied, not printed digitally, so each shade is a unique work of art, and will be a compelling feature of your home or establishment for decades.
Meteor Lights’ custom-made mid-century/modern pendant light fixtures, lamps, and lampshades are found in five-star restaurants and dive bars, coffee houses and rock clubs, new architectural showcase homes and renovated rockabilly pads, hair salons, bowling alleys, and retail establishments of all kinds. Vintage dealers and retro shops specify our replacement tiered and drum reproduction shades for their vintage lamps.
We offer a large selection of midcentury-modern lampshade styles, retro and contemporary colors, and 1950s vintage designs – providing a ridiculously wide range of lighting possibilities.
vintage shade parchment style
Our translucent Lumicel fiberglass-alternative lampshade parchment provides a glowing illumination similar to the fiberglass parchment used on original mid-century lampshades, but without all the health and environmental concerns of fiberglass lighting materials. Lumicel is also great for shoji screens, room dividers, lighting panels, and many other light diffusion applications.
Lumicel is durable, water-resistant (unlike linen or paper), and cleans easily with a damp cloth. Lumicel is made from recycled water bottles (PET), and the fibers are supple, not brittle, so it doesn’t have the scratchiness and airborne fiber issues associated with fiberglass lampshade parchment. Purchase Lumicel fiberglass (without the fiberglass!) light duffusion parchment.
We hand-stain our lampshades to achieve a wide range of vintage, retro, modern, and contemporary colors, and we can match your colors (with a fabric swatch, paint chip, or Pantone number). We take pride in fabricating the coolest, highest-quality, and widest variety of replacement drum and tiered shades anywhere.
We make authentic midcentury-modern style lighting, and are faithful to the vintage fabrication and manufacturing techniques. We never use computer printed designs or cheap paint, as found on other replicas. We hand-stain our shades and hand-paint our patterns with high-quality paint, stains, and pigments.
authentic replica lampshades
We also fabricate custom-shape lampshades, such as the Majestic/Luxcraft Z-Lamp tambourine shade with the classic zig-zag design, and the Danish Modern floor lamp inverted tall cone shade. Order Z-lamp shades.
We specialize in the low-profile shallow drum lampshades and tiered shades characteristic of mid-century/modern lighting of the 1940s and 1950s. Within certain parameters, the height of our drum shades can be customized to fit most lamps; for example, we also make the large barrel lampshade style characteristic of many lamps from the 1960s.
MCM pendant lamps & light fixtures
In addition to our replacement fiberglass lampshades, we incorporate our shade material into our custom-made swag lamps (hanging lamps),custom pendant light fixtures, and fiberglass sconce shields (perfect for your vintage Airstream Trailer). Our UL Listed modern pendant lamps are suitable for many indoor commercial and residential applications.
Located in the Mission District of San Francisco since 1996, Meteor Lights provides cool custom lamps, vintage-retro and contemporary lampshades, and modern light fixtures to the Bay Area, Northern California, the West, and beyond.drum
Can’t wait 4-8 weeks for your custom order? You might find your lighting solution in our in-stock ready-to-ship lampshade section of the on-line store (updated 8/4/25) (lots more to be added soon). These are production over-runs, samples, orphaned prototypes, experiments, slight blems, and one-offs from original vintage lighting materials we’ve stumbled upon over the years. These shades and lamps go at a discount, and are available to ship within 48 hours. If there’s nothing listed, check back later!
Advice for choosing lampshades and pendant light fixtures can be found on our Lighting Tips page, where you can read our tips on selecting the right size and style shade and pendant lamp or light fixture, as well as some suggestions on choosing colors and patterns. There’s also lots of MCM lamp and lighting history, lighting tips, shade fitting suggestions, and general lamp talk scattered throughout the Lighting Photo Galleries.
…And we’re glad to answer any of your lighting-related questions by phone or email..