Interview with Celine Darnaud from Moodlight

10 June 2024

By Sam Peters, Planted Co-Founder

Imagine that first day of Spring when the sun has finally enough strength to create warmth on your skin and the brightness to illuminate the pale green leaves emerging on the trees.

After months of long days, dark nights and cold winter skies, the early days of Spring, in the northern parts of Europe and America especially, are a time for hope and optimism.

Conversely, as autumn approaches and the nights draw in, our senses change. Protective instincts kick in. Gather. Hord. Make a nest to stay safe. The onset of winter can bring a sense of foreboding as we enter a gloomier, more frugal time, deprived of the natural light we crave.

There is science in this.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is, according to the organisation Mental Health UK, ‘a type of depression that has a seasonal pattern typically experienced during winter’.

The NHS website says SAD, or ‘winter depression’, is ‘often linked to reduced exposure to sunlight during the shorter autumn and winter months’.

Around five per cent of the population, equating to 20 million people in the United States and United Kingdom combined, suffer from SAD with symptoms including fatigue, irritability, increased appetite, disturbed sleep and even a reduction in sex drive.

And even for those not clinically diagnosed, most of us recognise that bounce in our step, which naturally coincides with those first glorious days of Spring sunshine and longer, lighter days.

For Celine Darnaud, the founder of Moodlight, the rhythm of the sun has had a profound effect on her life and driven her, along with award-winning designer Paul Crofts, to create a thing not just of great beauty, but potentially of life-changing importance to those millions impacted by SAD.

‘When you look on the NHS website and type in S-A-D the first thing it says you should do is to go out for a walk in the sunshine every morning. Clearly this is not always possible,’ Darnaud explains.

‘The next advice is to have light therapy followed by talking therapies, including cognitive behavioural therapies and even antidepressant medication.’

Having experienced SAD first hand when she moved to London from Aix-en-Provence in the South of France, a region famous for averaging more than 300 days of sunshine per year, the hitherto happy and healthy mother of four could not initially understand why her energy levels were as low as her mood.

She understood a little of Circadian rhythms and concluded that working in a downstairs office, bereft of natural light, allied to the significant reduction in sunlight exposure caused by move north, was having a profound and measurable effect on her mental and physical health.

‘I started exploring solutions and tried the Lightbox therapy I’d seen in Finland,’ Darnaud said.

‘Regular exposure to bright light is clinically proven to reduce melatonin levels and increase your levels of serotonin in your blood. Serotonin is known as the happiness hormone.

‘Before long, my moods were lifted and my energy had returned. People I worked with noticed a very significant change in me following the light treatment and wanted to know more.’

Walking into Celine’s immaculate upstairs flat in the up-market suburb of Hampstead in north London, perched high on a hill and a stone’s through from the famous heath, her love of light is evident.

With large sash windows on each wall her pristine kitchen is bathed in sunlight while wooden textiles and natural materials adorn the stylishly designed space.

Indeed, Darnaud’s eye for design is as evident as her love of sunlight. The colours are soft, the furniture comfortable, light plentiful and artwork exquisite.     

But it is at the front of the flat, by the entrance, where the most eye-catching statement piece rests.

Resembling something between a work of art and a piece of furniture, a solitary chair takes pride of place by the front door, with only a footstall to accompany it.

The design is beautifully simple with a high curved back of bent plywood and upholstery made of Scottish wool.

Manufactured in Runcorn by Isomi, the chair would be at home in a high-quality furniture collection which references Scandanavia in its paired back design. Think Benchmark, Another Country or Tom Raffield.

Sitting in the chair, built onto a steel swivel, you are immediately enveloped by its sides, closed off to the outside world. Sitting on the chair creates a sense of calm.

‘I think both between Celine and myself, the idea was to create a pod, a sort of encompassing space,’ explains designer Paul Crofts, who was first approached about the design by Darnaud in 2021. ‘So we needed something that would sort of envelop the user and then create that sense of enclosure.’

But while the chair stands out for the beautiful simplicity of its design, it also has two 23cm diameter LED lights seamlessly integrated into the backrest at eye level on either side of the user.  

This is the Moodlight chair, which between them Darnaud and Crofts intend to launch at the London Design Festival in September and which this writer at least believes could take the UK market, at the very least, by storm.

‘The design is intentionally Scandanavian in style because that is where lightbox therapy originates from,’ Darnaud explains.

‘But unlike most light therapy, which is provided in very stark, medicalised and surgical conditions the MOODLight chair provides exactly the same therapy from the comfort of a stylishly designed and supremely comfortable modern chair.

Promising to combine stylish contemporary design and comfort with improved health and wellbeing, the market opportunities for Crofts’ design seem enormous.

The trend, which began pre Covid, towards improving office design to make them more conducive to wellbeing mean the launch of the chair is even more timely.

‘Historically the office was not an especially interesting space from a design point of view,’ Crofts says.

‘But now office design is absolutely on a par with hotels, restaurants and hospitality. The boundaries between the workplace and home are now completely blurred.’

Ergonomically designed for comfort, the egg-shaped curves of the Moodlight chair represent safety and security while the swivel element allows the user to open up or close off depending on their wish.

The positioning of the lights at eye level intentionally maximises the amount of light to which the user’s retina is exposed.

Natural materials are championed in the design which also integrates the latest USB and USBC sockets to enable easy charging and connectivity.

‘By exposing yourself to bright light treatment the hope is it will improve and regulate your Circadian rhythm and by extension improve your sleep patterns, energy levels and ability to concentrate,’ Darnaud says.

‘I would love to see this chair in hospitals, first-class lounges at airports, hotels and libraries. Almost every space would benefit from having a Moodlight chair or three in it.’

It is hard to argue. Possessing the rare qualities of both style and substance, the Moodlight chair could make for a happier, healthier and brighter future for all.

Ends

For more information on Moodlight visit www.moodlightproject.com