Southwestern Lamp Shades
Vanessa is a New York-based designer specializing in architectural lighting. Whether you are planning an event, want to illuminate your backyard retreat or simply need advice on what lamp to purchase for your bedroom, Vanessa will be more than happy to share her knowledge and expertise.
Southwestern lamp shades come in several styles and ideas that can brighten up and complement not only the rough beauty of your room, but the actual lamp base, too. Translucent shades are the most logical choice if you’re looking to create the right ambiance or for a reading corner, whereas opaque options result in well-directed beams to highlight objects or strive for a specific mood. Here are our ideas to fully embrace Southwestern decor through your new lamp shades.
Our Picks
Drum Southwest style lamp shades
Made with high-quality iron ring PVC, this lamp shade is available in various styles, patterns, and colors to suit different decor needs, as well as three sizes—S, M and L—to easily match your lamp base.
Designer Advice:
The combination of turquoise with the most typical Southwestern palette—warm and earthy tones—makes this shade an extremely attention-grabbing element. The tribal pattern will also go particularly well with your other native decor items. Definitely choose this shade to wow your guests!
Southwest lamp shades in earthy tones
Lamps Plus
With earthy tones, this evocative 12-inch shade draws inspiration from the desert and its surrounding landscapes. Its chrome-finish spider fitting makes it durable and long-lasting.
As for patterns, Navajo prints are one of the most iconic ways of complementing Southwestern decor while homaging traditional native textiles: they mainly involve geometric repetitions of triangles and diamonds.
Designer Advice:
This brown, rustic lodge style shade will be a particularly great match for nature-inspired interiors.
Southwestern lamp shades combining warm & cold colors
Frestree
Consisting of iron rings and PVC, this lampshade is extremely durable. Its drum-shaped Navajo design—including both warm and cold colors from the most iconic Southwestern palettes—actually looks more like a work of art than a primarily functional piece!
If your lamp base is neutral and monochrome, you can really get creative with the shade.
Designer Advice:
For a more cohesive feel, place some decorative items in one of its hues next to your new lamp, like wall prints or cushions.
Neutral southwest lamp shades for ornate lamps
Lamps Plus
12-inches high, this linen fabric drum shade in a stylish earth-tone finish will brighten up your space with the right amount of light.
It’s also a wiser idea than a bright eye-catching pattern if your lamp base is already quite ornate.
$159.99
Designer Advice:
We recommend choosing a simple monochrome shade in a neutral color so that the spotlight (pun intended) is on the actual base. Just look at the delightfully balanced result achieved by this humble beige shade in a drum design!
Leather style southwestern lamp shades
Universal Lighting and Decor
Made with brown faux paper, this shade has an interesting distressed crackle finish. With 13 inches across the top and 15 on the bottom, it’s suitable for most medium-sized lamps.
This model can be another creative take on the original Southwestern lamp shade idea, especially if you’d like to emphasize this decor’s rustic element.
$44.99
Designer Advice:
Its leather style is ideal for ‘man cave’ interiors and will also complement spaces with darker hues.
Metal southwestern lamp shade
Colonial Tin Works
This sturdy tin lamp shade (8-inch wide on the top and 9.8 at the bottom) showcases a pattern homaging the iconic stars from the American flag.
Thanks to its metal build, this Southwestern shade can help you adopt another charming take on this design: accentuating the rough but romanticized elements of life in the desert.
$28.95
$39.95
Designer Advice:
If you’re looking for an opaque option, in particular, you should definitely consider a shade relying on this material.
Southwestern lamp shades in a simpler pattern
Scout Limited, Inc.
This embroidered 12-inch-wide cotton model relies on a recognizable star motif against a monochrome design.
It’s especially handy if you don’t want your new Southwestern lamp shade to be extremely eclectic but not even too basic. Offering a balanced combination between these two more obvious options, this type of design is ideal to match the rest of your palette in a humbler way.
Bronze or copper lamp shades New Mexico
This premium Tiffany-style lamp adds a valiant bronze finish to the iconic copper foil method made famous by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
While it might initially sound like a crazy pairing, it’s actually a creative way of adding an elegant touch to your cozy Southwestern interiors. After all, both styles are particularly colorful and characterized by bold geometrical shapes. Thanks to the motifs and hues from its recognizable Southwestern pattern, it’ll allow you to make a cohesive but memorable statement.
Colorful Mexican lamp shades
Giclee Glow
This smaller clip-on Mexican lampshade (3 inches on the top and 6 on the bottom) in a polished brass finish is a real show-stopper thanks to its exotic and bright hummingbird design.
You’re especially going to adore it if what draws you to Southwestern decor is its Mexican and Spanish influence.
Designer Advice:
Use it to add a colorful accent in a room relying on neutral or earthy tones. We don’t however recommend it for particularly ornate or eye-catching bases.
Southwestern lamp shades in animal prints
Giclee Glow
This leopard design in a polished brass finish (3 inches across the top and 6 at the bottom) is conveniently available in a set of four.
This would help you maintain a cohesive feel throughout the entire room or connect separate ones. After all, it’s not just about leather: from rugs to wall art, animal skins and prints are another popular way of decorating Southwestern interiors.
