Design Blog

Maria Paola Stola manages the special edition of the Fiat 500 Diabolika.

During one of my transits in Italy at the end of July I had the pleasure to participate in an interesting encounter with the designer Maria Paola Stola (the clever and beautiful wife of Alfredo Stola, founder of Studiotorino) at the Salt laboratory. There I got to know, appreciate and touch with my own hands the Diabolika (before it even came out): the captivating personalization of the new Fiat 500 – presented officially on September 12^th as a part of the Torino World Design Capital – unexpected union between the famous comic book of the Giussani sisters and one of the timeless Fiat myths, recently re-launched and splendidly renewed. More details below the cut. Read the rest of this entry »

Translated by Silvia — Lately at the Furniture Fair in Milan we have been able to admire the urban trendy touch on one of the most famous pieces in the history of design: a piercing applied on the sensual lips of DARK LADY, the new tainted black version of the Bocca sofa.

The original model in red created by Studio 65 in Turin in 1975 in homage to Salvador Dalì has become so famous as to be included in the permanent collection of New York’s MoMA, Paris’ Louvre, Milan’s Permanent Design Collection of Italian design and Denver’s Museum of Modern Art.

Strong piece in the “I Multipli” collection of about180 pieces, Bocca is indeed one of the most famous along with Pratone, Cactus and Capitello. Made from cold-expanded polyurethane a dressed in stretchy material, Bocca and its new version DARK LADY, produced in limited edition of only 1000 pieces, are produces by Gufram, the historical Italian company which is now a part of the Charme group (with Cappellini, Poltrona Frau and Gebruder Thonet).

Strangely though… in the States, this mythical and sexy sofa is known as MARILYN, a love seat, so-called by Eleanore Stendig from Stendig, Inc. in New York, the first importer of Bocca on American soil. The reference is clear!
More images in the cut below.

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Translated by Silvia — ATYPYK will be present at Milan’s Design Week and will leave, as usual, an ironically rule-breaking and originally desecrating sign of its passage.

From this provocative studio based in Paris, we have already been able to appreciate Wooferang, Moon Carpet, the Bon Apetit! Tie, and now also the Clean Fast Race gloves, gloves made of (pink!) rubber for the new generations always in a hurry to complete domestic tasks. There are also the Kamasutra Condoms, with glow-in-the-dark packaging and the 64 erotic positions from which to take inspiration; Python tape, the sticky tape decorated in python print, to seal with style and the Break Up Handkerchief, the handkerchief to be used in case of love tragedies….

Images and information in the link below.

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Translated by Silvia — A touch of moon light for furniture which reminds us of the Thai Full Moon Parties at Ko Phangan down the Haad Rin beach, and of full-moon summer nights from when we were kids, rocked by a story and the hypnotic sound of the sea.

Fullmoon is born from the creativity of the Greek designer Sotirios Papdopoulos for the Italian company EnneZero from Pordenone (the same one that created the furniture collection for Giuseppe Canavese, dedicated to the fascinating and sensual Valentina of Guido Crepax): a 24 piece limited edition piece of furniture with luminous special effects that recreates the luminescence of the full moon thanks to an ecologically safe varnish (ELI: “ecolightinside” created by Papadopoulos himself) of a gelatinous consistency. Thanks to the addition of a special ecological power, it takes on light-in-the-dark properties, to give the home the suggestive lunar influxes to which Man and nature have been attracted since the dead of time.

This novelty will be on show at the temporary SOHO gallery that will be held during Milan’s Furniture and Design week, for the “dEMOsign” exhibition from the 18^th to the 20^th of April 2008.

More pictures in the cut below.

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