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The BIC Cristal pen might be the most successful industrial design object of all time. Not because it was precious or clever, but because it was everywhere. Classrooms, offices, hospitals, hotel reception desks, glove boxes, airline counters. Across decades and languages, it just worked. If you ever needed to write something down, chances are a BIC pen was within reach.
Which is why seeing it blown up to human height at Maison&Objet 2026 made so much sense. Unveiled by Seletti, the BIC Lamp is exactly what it sounds like: the classic Cristal pen, scaled up 12 times and turned into a light. Same shape, same colours, same ubiquitous attitude. Just swap the ink for something brighter, and you’ve got a piece of art that will have your guests impressed.
Seletti hasn’t tried to muck around with the design or add any flourishes. Designed by Mario Paroli, it really is just a giant BIC biro pen, with a warm 3000K LED running through the middle of its clear hexagonal barrel where the ink would normally sit. At 178 centimetres long, the BIC Lamp comes as a floor lamp, wall-mounted piece, or pendant. The cap and end are unchanged, and there’s even a BIC logo exactly where you’d expect it.
Materials also stay true to the original, with a full plastic construction just like the pen. And for good reason. Anything heavier or more premium would have felt out of place. This thing works because it doesn’t pretend the Cristal was ever a luxury object.
Speaking about the collaboration, BIC’s general manager for stationery, David Cabero, framed the lamp less as a novelty and more as a reflection of how deeply the Cristal is embedded in everyday life.
“Turning this everyday object into a larger-than-life lamp shows the impact this simple ballpoint pen, created in 1950, has had on collective imagination,” Cabero said.
It’s not the first time we’ve seen everyday objects get this kind of rethink, either. Australian studio Heliograf did something similar last year with its Light Soy Flex, which turns the little fish-shaped soy sauce bottle you get with takeaway sushi into a small, adaptable light. It can hang, mount, or sit on a table, and around 75 per cent of the shade is made from certified ocean-bound plastic. As co-founder Angus Ware put it at the time, sustainability should be “seamless, functional, and a bit fun.”
The BIC Lamp will be available from late March to early April in black, blue, and red across floor, wall-mounted, and pendant versions, priced at €299 (roughly AUD$520). It’s a fair bit more than you’d pay for a standard lamp, but then again, this was never meant to be standard.
Though it’s definitely a missed opportunity not to make this a smart light, since matching the light to the colour of your BIC lamp would’ve been amazing. Maybe that’s something for version 2.
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