As sunrise edges ever closer to sunset, and daylight dwindles each day, there’s nothing like investing in exuberant lighting to bring back a bit of summer sparkle. September is the month when designers unveil the best and brightest additions to their lighting ranges. So, for a dose of substitute sunshine, bypass the boring uplights, plain wall washers and sober desk lamps, and go straight for the extravagant, the glitzy and the quirky.

At the interiors show 100% Design (September 18-21; www.100percent design.co.uk), look out for the ceiling pendant Antares, by Abraxus Lighting (from £135; www.abraxuslighting.co.uk ), the Txl Outdoor lamp (from £866, by Marset; www.marset.com ), and the triplet of globes with markings based on fingerprint whorls, by Within4Walls (far right, top). The fairy-tale table lamp by Enea Studio called Snowhite is the show’s most enchanting piece, its shape inspired by trees covered with snow (about £500; www.enea-studio.com ).

Though I understand the allure of the cutting edge, I can’t resist a bit of retro. At another interiors show, Decorex (September 21-24; www.decorex.com ), you can catch the work of Fabio Bergomi of Rainbow (www.rainbowlondon. com ). Bergomi brings a stylish contemporary spin to his Italian heritage, creating lighting from Murano glass petals and sleek crystal bars. This year’s collection includes art deco-style wall sconces in twisted crystal (Twist, £529). Chandeliers by the venerable old Murano glass house Vetreria Vistosi can be found at Cameron Peters, including the Giogali pendant, a chain mail of hundreds of handmade glass links (£610; www.cameronpeters.co.uk ).

Of this year’s models, Jake Phipps’s eccentric designs made from hats are set to become instant design classics. Named after P G Wodehouse characters, Jeeves (a bowler, £210) and Wooster (a topper, £225; www.jakephipps.com) have charmed the Italians, been ordered in bulk for a Philippe Starck hotel in Paris, and are now being snapped up by British fans, to hang in a line above their breakfast bars. To clean, Phipps advises a clothes brush – or you could get your gentleman’s gentleman to ply the bristles.

Extravagant lighting need not be a ruinous habit. Plenty of outstanding decorative designs can be found for less than £100. The Loopy Lu by Lothair Hamann combines a hint of the Vistosi chain-link chandeliers with a hefty dose of the artist’s trademark playful-ness (£39.50). Delicate porcelain table lamps and lights by Liz Emtage start at £25 for a Summer Grasses tea light.

Tord Boontje’s romantic Midsummer Lights, a floral confection of laser-cut Tyvek paper, costs £62 from Radiance (www.radiancelighting.co.uk), and his Garland pendant shade, in acid-etched metal, first exhibited at the V&A’s Brilliant exhibition in 2004, is now available from Habitat (£19; www.habitat.net ).

Lighting design is a marriage of art and science. The German designer Ingo Maurer has conceived many classics in his 50-year career: the Lucellino winged bulb table lamp (£199), for instance, and Eddie’s Son, featuring a hologram of a bulb (£970; both from Cameron Peters, as before). This year, Maurer unveiled the first ever lights using organic LEDs, which offer the benefits of standard LEDs – energy efficiency, low operating voltage and mercury-free design – with the added interest that, when switched off, they are transparent (www.ingo-maurer.com).

So, what is the future of lighting? Maurer is hoping to resuscitate the fortunes of an old technology. “I am working on a new incandescent light bulb,” he says. “The incandescent bulb was my first love and we are fighting for its survival.” He is referring to the phased withdrawal, announced last summer, of traditional light bulbs, starting with those rated 150W and above in January. These are to be replaced by compact fluorescent light bulbs, a fact that has rendered much of the lighting industry incandescent with rage.

Campaigners are bemoaning their often unlovely forms and the ghastly life-sucking gloom they cast, making the traditional bulb the unlikely focus of a conservation crusade (www.savethebulb.org). As Maurer sums up: “It’s not only the ugliness of the energy-saving bulbs that is upsetting, it’s the light. What is that expression in Eng-lish? It makes you feel blah.” Ah yes, that end-of-summer feeling again.

Light fingers £1,428

See the Detail pendant lights (pictured above) by Within4Walls at the 100% Design show at Earls Court, SW5, September 18-21. The triple pendant consists of three 14cm globes with a two-metre maximum drop, designed to hang above a dining table or sideboard. The pattern is based on a fingerprint, its whorls laser-sintered (selectively melted) from the polyamide of the globe, to become channels through which the light glows. www.within4walls.co.uk

In the loop £39.50

The colourful Loopy Lu ceiling lights (30cm x 33cm) were conceived by what the designer Lothair Hamann describes as “happy accident”, while playing around with components from an earlier design – which perhaps accounts for their haphazard vibe. Hamann makes the polypropylene Loopies in small batches to keep quality high. From Hidden Art; www.hiddenartshop.com

Glow for it from £380

The ceramicist Liz Emtage’s handmade lamps in translucent porcelain are inlaid with a variety of delicate patterns, made by pressing plants and grasses into the clay. These then burn out during the kiln firing, leaving delicate impressions on the surface. Clients can request plants from their garden to be used. Extra-large Aquagrass (54cm x 20cm), £592; small Aquapalms and small Redstar lamps (30cm x 16cm), £380 each. 020 7419 4217, www.lizemtageceramics.com

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers