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You wonder how a party, something that is supposed to be fun, can feel like it’s draining the life out of your very soul. As you look around the yawning faces of the guests, you realize it’s going to take drastic measures to salvage any excitement out of this long night. So you sneak a desperate gulp of your drink, slip on your tinted sunglasses and leap atop of the sofa. Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening. Trends are cyclical, and it seems that even the most outrageous ones find a way of coming back in vogue.
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The resulting paint jobs featured a patchwork of bright colours and bold patterns, continued inside the vehicle with patterned textiles. Italian furniture and homewares brand Kartell staged its own tribute to the Memphis design aesthetic in 2015 by finally releasing a range of products that Ettore Sottsass – then in his late 80s – had originally designed for it in 2004. Two years after Christian Dior wowed the fashion world, Memphis-inspired patterns and designs were everywhere at Milan Design Week 2013. Original Memphis Group member Nathalie Du Pasquier applied her distinctive graphic patterns to a rug produced by La Chance, revealed at the show. How this major design trend is reviving the bold colours and geometric patterns of the 1980s.
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The furniture realm is largely where they stayed (although they also created other design objects) until 1988, when the collective officially disbanded; Sottsass left in 1985. Despite its fringe status, there were moments when Memphis entered the mainstream to inform pop culture in an unforgettable way. Its aesthetic can be seen on the set of Saved by the Bell and Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The first Memphis wave had come and gone long before Cara Delevingne, the English actress and singer, was born. But when Architectural Digest published images of her London house, designed by the architect Tom Bartlett in 2018, it wasn’t that much of a surprise to find Sottsass’s Carlton bookcase and his Callimaco floor lamp in her sitting room.
Memphis Again a vibrant explosion of bold, daring expressions - SHINE News
Memphis Again a vibrant explosion of bold, daring expressions.
Posted: Wed, 24 May 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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Ettore Sottsass designed a range of products for the homewares brand Kartell in 2004 when he was in his late 80s. Unfortunately, Sottsass never had the chance to see the completed installation, as it was only much later, after the death of Sottsass, that the installation occurred, in 2015. Instead of the expensive chrome and leather used by Modernist designers, Memphis designers used mostly cheap laminate for all their designs, which was quite ironic, considering that their designs were targeted at an elite market. As overused as laminate is today, at the time it was very unconventional for designers to make use of it in the way Memphis designers did. As with most design movements, Memphis design took inspiration from previous design movements.

One of his most iconic pieces is the “Tahiti Lamp”, which he described as a symbol of Memphis’s revival. Many designers saw their work as merely a fad that will soon pass, very unaware of the historical and futuristic impact that they would be responsible for. After the group separated, most of them continued with their designs on their own, including Sottsass himself.

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As nostalgia for 80s style has returned, Memphis Design has become the stuff of museum retrospectives and a wellspring of inspiration for multi-disciplinary designers. This includes fashion houses such as Christian Dior and Missoni, and new generations of interior designers, type designers, costume designers, and more, such as London-based French multidisciplinary designer Camille Walala. “When I was young, all we ever heard about was functionalism, functionalism, functionalism,” Sottsass once said. Design should also be sensual and exciting.”Memphis Design influenced the popular culture, inspiring TV shows like Pee-wee's Playhouse and Saved By the Bell. Celebrity 1980s superfans of the design style included legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and David Bowie.
Related to the postmodern, the movement, with its bold and screaming compositions, shaped the parody “less is a bore”, by Robert Venturi. Unfortunately, their products were liked by only a few and criticized by many, which is most likely why their reign was so short-lived. Their products were criticized for being impractical, expensive, and outright ugly. The use of cheap plastic laminates and bright, clashing colors was far from what was considered conventional and good taste at the time. In 2013 and 2014 there was also a return of the bold patterns and designs of Memphis during Milan Design Week.
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Its unique combinations of colors with overlapping patterns and textures make it one of the most easily recognizable design styles of all. For a style that is still so popular today, it has a rich history that came with more negative reviews than positives. We will be looking at both sides and discussing why the style reemerged and is so popular today. Memphis was seen as equally sensational outside the closed confines of the design community. The packed opening party, cool graphics and hip young designers – male and female, from different countries - proved irresistible to the mass media.
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“He detested any type of institution or hierarchy,” the designer’s widow, Barbara Radice, once noted. He believed everybody should find their own way of doing things.” From its debut at Milan’s 1981 Salone del Mobile, the movement generated sent ripples through the design community. In 1982 in New York, Sottsass organized the first stateside exhibition of Memphis, titled “Memphis at Midnight,” which opened to an eager crowd of over 3,000 people waiting to cram inside the Chelsea loft showroom where the works were displayed. The haphazard vibes of Memphis burst into graphic design to mix turquoise and gold, bring grotesque texture matches and combine big typography with bold colors.
He saw life as continuous, and every element of his practice was part of a much larger whole. Actually, Memphis contrasted minimalism and unlimited self-expression which sometimes borders on creative anarchy. It’s true that the movement was criticized for destroying the concept of good taste — but which one wasn’t?
Built beginning in 1936 by the Works Progress Administration, it features the distinctive horizontal lines, classic rounded corners railing and windows of the style, resembling the elements of ship. The interior preserves much of the original decoration and detail, including murals by artist and color theoretician Hilaire Hiler. There was nobody on the streets because of all the violence the left and right wings started in the late ’70s.