Vibieffe was born in Lissone in Brianza in 1968 for the creation of high quality upholstered furniture, sofas and beds with a tailored approach, where each process is characterized by a solid tradition and craftsmanship. The iconic product par excellence of the company is the sofa that converts into a bed, available in all possible aesthetic variations, such as the most famous, the Squadroletto, where it is possible to obtain complete customization through the choice of armrests, sizes and fabrics. The same goes for the more recent models such as Happy, Tangram, Bel Air, Gulp, Prince.
All models are made with a composite and multilayer wood structure, and designed with the utmost attention to style, refinement, quality and attention to detail typical of Made in Italy interior design. All sofas can be covered by choosing from an infinite range of types of fabrics and leathers, particularly refined, in all the main colors: leather, leather, cotton, linen, wool, velvet, made with tailoring and craftsmanship. The padding and seat cushions are in polyurethane foam covered with a thermal layer. The back cushions are in washed and sterilized down mixed with siliconized polyester fiber.
The opening and closing mechanisms of Vibieffe sofa beds use different types of solutions, highly safe and reliable, they are designed and tested to last over time and are the result of years of research and innovation, development and use of advanced technologies ; the mechanisms differ according to the technology used: with elastic belts, with electro-welded mesh or with wooden slats for the ecowood version according to the different models. The bed can be equipped with a spring mattress, or in polyurethane foam, with a Memory foam, Waterlily or latex mattress. The cushions are in polyurethane foam and washed and sterilized down mixed with siliconized polyester fibers. Vibieffe mattresses are of high quality, certified and covered with antibacterial, anti-mite and antifungal fabrics, which ensure hygiene, elasticity, ergonomics and breathability. This attention to mechanisms and mattresses has made the world leader in the sector not easy for the convertible sofa.
Another important section of the Vibieffe catalog is represented by the padded beds, traditional or more contemporary, which can be personalized and made unique by choosing from an infinite range of fabric or leather coverings, also with tailoring and handcrafted finishes of the highest quality, which often resume ancient Italian traditions. The covers are removable and washable. The supporting structure of all the beds is made of steel, while the orthopedic bed bases are made of evaporated beech slats. In some models, on request, a basic structure with a box underneath can be opened, which can be opened with a tilting lift or with a horizontal lift. All mechanisms are made with materials that comply with environmental protection regulations, non-toxic and non-harmful. The mattresses are certified and available in Aqupur and Memory Form cans, in natural latex foam, with springs or with pocket springs, covered with antibacterial, anti-mite and antifungal fabrics to ensure hygiene, ergonomics, elasticity and breathability. Many models have the exclusive Up & Down system on request, or an adjustable mechanism that allows you to place the mattress at the height you are used to. Among the most famous models: Bel air, Soap, Open, Tangram.
Cappellini
Cappellini is a historic family of Italian design company, founded in Carugo in 1946 by Enrico Cappellini. a synonym of originality, modernity and experimentation, the brand Cappellini produces quality furniture, never banal and able to furnish any residential space and contract. Born as a small firm, the collections are characterized by refined simplicity and personality, dictated by the big names of international design, findings from its talent scout and corporate designer Giulio Cappellini. There is talk of Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Tom Dixon, Marcel Wanders, the Bouroullec brothers and Nendo, designers works as Cloud, Knotted Chair, Embryo Chair, Pylon Chair and many more, now become icons of the brand internationally recognized and exhibited in the most museums in the world such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, MoMA in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The collection consists of three divisions, Collection Systems and Project Subject to translate flexibly all requirements of contemporary furniture, and bridge the gap between design and traditional furniture.
The talent of the architect Giulio Cappellini in sniffing out new trends, understanding in advance the evolution of living and discovering first of all new designers on the international scene, has made the Cappellini collection unique, varied and cosmopolitan. In the Cappellini catalog you can find all the most significant design developments of the past 50 years: from Alessandro Mendini’s apparently irreverent projects of denunciation and reflection, such as the iconic Proust armchair, to the poetry and lightness of the works of the Japanese designer Shiro Kuramata, of which Cappellini holds exclusive rights for the whole world.
The long, constant and important partnership with the British designer Jasper Morrison, which every year creates new projects for the brand with the usual minimal and elegant trait that distinguishes it: the professional and friendship relationship between Jasper Morrison and Giulio Cappellini dates back to many decades ago, when the latter decided to put Jasper Morrison’s thesis project into production and in the catalog: the outdoor and indoor metal armchair with sinuous shapes and poetic name: Thinking man’s Chair.
According to Cappellini, the house can be colorful, whimsical, contemporary, but also minimal, bourgeois and reassuring, translating flexibly every need for contemporary furniture, not being able to have any boundaries or limits.
De Padova
The history of De Padova spans all decades from the 1950s onwards, with unchanged elegance and sophistication.
In the 1950s, Fernando and Maddalena De Padova started their entrepreneurial business by importing Scandinavian furniture and objects sold in the showroom in via Montenapoleone in Milan. For the first time, northern European design arrives in Italy: its simplicity and rigor become a new possible proposal in the field of design.
In the 1960s, during a trip to Basel, Maddalena De Padova accidentally discovered Charles Eames’ Wire Chair; in a few months, Maddalena meets the American company Herman Miller from which she obtains the production license for Italy of the products designed by Charles Eames and George Nelson. ICF De Padova is founded, based in Vimodrone, which will produce Herman Miller office furniture in Italy. From this meeting Maddalena De Padova absorbs the secrets that will constitute the heart of her philosophy: the importance of the environmental context by George Nelson, the “connections” by Charles Eames, the role of objects by Alexander Girard. The large showroom in Corso Venezia in Milan is inaugurated, an extraordinary exhibition space on three levels, where design becomes the protagonist.
After Fernando’s death, Maddalena De Padova personally takes care of the company, follows its production activity and distribution; ICF is sold and a new company is founded which focuses on the edition of new furnishings, its name: Edizioni De Padova, then simply E ’De Padova. Vico Magistretti began his long collaboration with the company in these years by designing a collection of office furniture with its usual elegance; it will be the beginning of a happy partnership that will enrich the De Padova catalog with many masterpieces that have entered the history of Italian design: from the Silver chair, to the Vidun table, from the Pillow sofa to the Shigeto container.
Achille Castiglioni designs a series of displays for the windows that confirm the uniqueness of the company’s style, the true theatrical staging of design, where the windows overlooking Corso Venezia become a unique stage on the Milanese and then world design scene; settings played on irony, creativity and awareness of wanting to tell a story. Castiglioni also designs some pieces of great beauty for the collection, such as the 95 table and the Scrittarello desk. He joins the Dieter Rams group: Maddalena De Padova falls in love with her 606 bookcase and decides to produce aluminum for the Italian market: the 606 bookcase still remains the best example in the world of a container for storing books.
At the end of the 90s the collaboration with Renzo Piano began for the furnishing of the café of the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, followed by, among others, the furnishing of the Morgan Library restaurant in New York and the Sole 24 Ore headquarters in Milan: all the most elegant domestic or business interiors perfectly fit the furnishings of the De Padova catalog. In the 2000s Maddalena De Padova received the Compasso d’Oro for Lifetime Achievement and reopened the space of the former I.C.F. factory, completely renovated and enlarged, which became the company’s headquarters. Patricia Urquiola and Nendo join the team designers alongside the historical collection. Maddalena De Padova completes the transfer of the company’s leadership to the children Valeria and Luca who further develop it by giving it a managerial structure. In April 2015, the company was acquired by Boffi, which allows the company an international distribution program, with the passion and all-Italian heritage that unites them.
De Padova remains firmly an example of Italian timeless elegance, where a correct balance, excellent design and great respect for the Italian design tradition continue to furnish the houses and the most refined spaces of Italians and now also all over the world, in furrow of the choices, still very current, of Maddalena De Padova.
E15
e15 stands for consistency, rigorous design, combined with high quality materials and innovative artisan production methods. As a modern quality brand that caters to a global home and contract market, the brand maintains a global approach to the interiors, with a marked architectural vision pursued by its founder, the architect Philipp Mainzer, together with the designer and art director Farah Ebrahimi.
In close collaboration with designers, architects and artists, e15 develops original products and cultured artistic references, which reflect the brand’s philosophy and its approach open to different cultures and disciplines.
The company takes its name from the postal code of its first laboratory in London and was founded in 1995 with a first small collection; a radical new simplicity marked this debut, leaving an indelible mark in the history of modern design with essential shapes made even more evident by the solid and raw material, the untreated solid oak. The BIGFOOT ™ table and BACKENZAHN ™ stool are the most iconic furnishings in this collection, which has established a new aesthetic through the pioneering use of solid wood in its purest form.
From the Historical collection of 1995, new projects alternated annually, always on the same track, enriching the catalog with beds, bookcases, desks, chairs, armchairs, sideboards, bookcases, sofas … and an equally rigorous line of accessories. The use of solid oak remains at the center of production, recently flanked by the darker walnut option. A special mention deserves the selection and textile production, created for upholstered items such as beds and sofas, created by art director Farah Ebrahimi, which takes modern ancient textile traditions from different countries in a modern key, rereading them with contemporary colors and geometries. The re-editions of some historical pieces designed in the 1920s by Ferdinand Kramer, a German master with a rigorous and essential trait, which perfectly aligns with the contemporary proposals of e15, have recently been included in the catalog.
Ecart
Ecart was born in Paris in 1978 from the will and foresight of Anrée Putman, who bravely decides to re-propose some forgotten designers of the 1930s such as René Herbst, Jean-Michel Frank, Pierre Chareau, Michel Dufet, Mariano Fortuny, Robert Mallet-Stevens , Eileen Gray … trying to win back the general public with some eternal masterpieces in a period, the early 1980s, where design and interior trends were taking different paths. The name already wants to be a manifesto of what you want to propose: Ecart as a gap, as a different proposal from everything that was dominating the world of design in those years.
In the mind of Putman these masterpieces could not be forgotten, the result of the design of great architects and designers and the realization of the best French and in particular Parisian craftsmen. In fact, everything started from Paris and then interested in the world, up to the United States of America, where Putman herself will take care of the famous Morgans Hotel in New York in 1984 and then of many public and private spaces.
As she often liked to say after the Americans, finally the French and then the Europeans began to love her style and her elegant and refined proposals; the works of the great French masters of the 1930s were proposed together with an always impeccable anonymous design, with colors and materials often very brave: electric blue, the famous black and white damier (almost a trademark) …
Many well-known faces and French fashion brands such as Azzedine Alaia, Balenciaga and Karl Lagerfeld relied on Putman and Ecart furnishings for their shops and ateliers, but also some politicians such as the French minister of culture Jack Lang for his office. in 1984 or finally some large institutions such as the CAPC museum of contemporary art in Bordeaux, for which Anrée Putman will design a monumental and iconic floor lamp
In Putman’s work and in the Ecart catalog, almost a reflection of her personality, the materials defined as rich and precious, such as black lacquer or chromed steel, are combined with simple and poor ones, such as cotton or natural wood, the bolder colors are put in relation with more neutral ones, more squared shapes are alternated with more sinuous lines.
The Ecart catalog is still divided into 2 parts: one dedicated to the historic French masters of architecture and interiors of the 1930s, much loved by Putman, the other to projects designed by Putman herself, such as the Crescent Moon sofa or the floor lamp Lune, or new collaborations and contemporary designers. All production: furniture, upholstery and lighting, is still made in France by the best craftsmen, while rugs, like the iconic black and white specimen by Eileen Gray, are hand-woven in Nepal.
Edra
Edra has always paid great attention to the research of new materials or reinvent and flexible types, capable of transforming the creative concept in industrial project. The highly specialized manual intervention and refined, Italian genetic inheritance cultivated with intent, characterizes the uniqueness of production. Technologies used come from unlimited horizons, explored without prejudice. High-tech that draws from different industries to complement its input into the design without the need for performance. Great technical complexity, which translates into extreme simplicity of use. Technology to augment the means of expression, advanced design solution, innovazione. L’intervento manual is the irreplaceable human contribution that distinguishes and characterizes the uniqueness of the results. The essential attention to detail is the result of the manual wisdom cultivated from years of experience. intrinsic dexterity that is part of the manufacturing process of each product Edra and ensures the exceptional quality. An evolutionary choice in conceiving seriale.Nuove production relations between body and objects are explored. The concept of comfort is transformed, spreading to new possibilities and adapting to profound changes daily living needs. Previously unattainable levels of comfort are achieved by creating new forms and using different materials.
Edra sofas are universally considered the most comfortable and ergonomically in the world thanks to the skills and inspiration of Francesco Binfarè, one of the most prepared personalities on the subject in the world of design, architect since the 1960s of engineering the best sofas of Italian design . The works of Binfarè, for Edra both designer and technical leader of the team of engineers for the realization, are timeless sofas, where technology, very advanced, but invisible, is at the service of aesthetics: Flap, Standard, Sherazade, On The Rocks, Il Grande Soffice, Absolu, Essential, Pack … are some of the projects that have now become iconic.
A separate discussion in the Edra catalog is reserved for the historic partnership with the Campana brothers, famous Brazilian designers of international design. Their first project for Edra is the famous Favela armchair, handmade in Brazil with wood waste. Every year, for decades, the Campana brothers have created new projects for Edra, always united by the strong creativity and that characteristic ironic note that distinguishes them. Among the best known projects, many now part of the best museum design collections, we can mention: the Cipria sofa, the Sushi, Vermelha, Grinza, Corallo armchairs, the Brasilia containers and tables, the Cabana bed …
Edra’s selection, always in search of new international collaborations, is completed with the projects of Jacopo Foggini, master in the processing of methacrylate, with a collection of flower-shaped armchairs by the Japanese Masanori Umeda, Getsuen and Rose chair and with the armchair Sponge by Peter Traag, made thanks to a very advanced technology.
Flos
For fifty years Flos has created objects of light and ignites generations of dreams, it was born in 1962 in Merano by the will of Dino Gavina, genius of Italian design and great discoverer of talents.
For Flos, light is the material with which to express new ideas and illuminate unexplored emotions.
The company philosophy can be summarized in these passages: “We write the future, reading our past and expressing today, in a continuity of concrete challenges and bold choices that have shaped our image and identity. Our history has taught us to keep the fire of provocation alive with the search for new poetics of functionality ”
Following instinct has always allowed Flos to create products that become icons, invent types and set new archetypes.
The design paths are many: to identify with the masters of design, such as the Castiglioni or Gino Sarfatti brothers, who sign some of the most famous design lamps in the world such as Arco, Taccia, Toio …, but also to continuously discover new talents. In fact, all the most interesting personalities in the world of design collaborate or have collaborated with Flos: from Philippe Starck to Marcel Wanders, from Jasper Morrison to the Bouroullec brothers, from Michael Anastasiades to Nendo to name just a few. The strengths of the brand, which always place it at the forefront, are manifold, among them, a rare element for a contemporary design company: having great technical and technological authority and being part of mass culture.
Experimentation has allowed Flos to adopt revolutionary materials, such as in the past the cocoon, with which it developed the first lamps of the Castiglioni brothers, and more advanced technological solutions, represented today by OLED and sustainable materials.
Precisely for these reasons, inventing new languages ??around light means for the company to indicate new aesthetics and freedom of life, never forgetting, in the lamps of yesterday and today, to take seriously game and irony.
On the fine line that divides and unites art from design, artisanal production from industrial production, the limited series from the large-scale one, the individual’s thought from the collective one: This is where Flos is and it is there that we can find it. The Flos catalog is divided into different sectors to satisfy all the needs regarding light: a decorative part, including home lamps designed by the most famous designers, a technical part, for high-definition lighting systems for public spaces, and finally a part dedicated outside to illuminate, according to the same aesthetic and technical characteristics, terraces, gardens, swimming pools, streets, squares …
Fritz Hansen
Fritz Hansen was founded in 1872 by the visionary carpenter of the same name and has since become a natural part of the history of both Danish and international design and an exclusive and sought after design brand
The history of Fritz Hansen is characterized by wonderful craftsmanship, a unique design and an innate sense of high quality. Architects and furniture designers from all over the world have regularly contributed to the collection with beautifully shaped and functional furnishings, through the use of innovative techniques and new materials. Arne Jacobsen, Poul Kjærholm, Piet Hein, Vico Magistretti, Burkhard Vogtherr, Piero Lissoni, Kasper Salto and Morten Voss … the list of designers is long and the list of furniture with great international fame is even more.
Fritz Hansen’s iconic classic collection includes a large part of the most famous furniture by Danish architects and designers, including the Egg, Swan and Serie 7 chairs by Arne Jacobsen and the PK22 chair and the PK80 sofa by Poul Kjaerholm. The contemporary collection, second soul of the catalog, presents instead furnishings and accessories of some of the most stimulating and internationally recognized contemporary designers, including Jaime Hayon, Piero Lissoni, Kasper Salto and Cecilia Manz. Common to the two collections is a sculptural artistic expression that confuses the lines between design and art and combines function and form in unprecedented ways, giving each work a significant presence and purpose.
The corporate design philosophy reflects its history and inspires the creation of new, simple, sculptural, original and timeless furniture. Fritz Hansen’s design is visionary and makes the most of noble materials; every detail is carefully studied, the process is complete and impeccable and the final glance is unique and immediately recognizable. The general style is international and elegant: each piece of furniture is sophisticated in its own way, has a strong identity and the ability to discreetly illuminate any type of space.
Today as in 1872, Fritz Hansen’s work is guided by the philosophy that a single piece of furniture can beautify an entire room or building and simultaneously increase the well-being of the people who inhabit these spaces. With a strong international presence and an ever-expanding collection of iconic designs, Fritz Hansen continues his journey in creating elegant and discreet furnishing elements, which do not compromise comfort, and in strengthening his position in the global design elite , discreet luxury and contemporary living.
Karimoku
Karimoku is a wooden furniture manufacturer from central Japan with a history of more than 70 years.
Their tradition derives from a deep understanding of artisan carpentry in combination with cutting-edge technologies for the construction of high-quality furniture possible.
Collaborating with some of the most promising international design talents such as the Dutch creative couple Scholten and Baijings or the Swiss Big Game studio, the KARIMOKU NEW STANDARD division was created and launched in 2009, a growing collection of innovative, joyful and functional objects which adapt to urban life forms in the 21st century.
With the aim of preserving and revitalizing Japanese forests and regaining balance with the local forestry industry, our products are made using sustainable Japanese woods, such as maple, chestnut and oaks – small – diameters that are often discarded or finish like paper pulp.
KARIMOKU NEW STANDARD pieces are made to give lasting joy, faithful to the belief that a piece of furniture should last at least as long as the tree from which it was made.
The story of Karimoku, a leader in Japanese wooden furniture production, began as a small carpentry shop in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture in 1940. Shohei Kato took over a timber company that already existed in the Edo period.
Processing technologies, surface treatment and wood coloring were accumulated through the subcontracting of the various wooden parts in the mid-1900s: spinning machines that supported Japan’s post-war reconstruction in the 1940s; sewing machine tables, piano parts and TV stands with wooden legs in the 1950s; and the company of the time sought original furniture for the domestic market in the early 1960s.
Since then, Karimoku has focused on pursuing its original concept of “high-tech and high-touch” products by defining bases in timber production areas. Karimoku has a large and reliable supply of large-scale advanced materials and structures showing techniques of craftsmen in the greatest possible extension. In addition, the company has also put in place a national system for wholesale and after-sales services for product care. Thus, Karimoku has developed a unique and unprecedented system that traverses the procurement of materials, production and sales within a company.
Karimoku also aims to help improve people’s lives to meet the challenges presented by environmental issues. This is demonstrated in the history of over 30 years of Karimoku in the reform and use of “Parawood”, a product derived from rubber trees after its use in latex production.
Knoll
In 1938 Hans Knoll, German emigrated to the U.S. due to racial laws, she opened a small laboratory for the creation of furnishings to create modern interiors and in 1943 she married Florence Schust, architect and designer graduated from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills in Michigan and with her enlarged the company, which in 1946 it became Knoll Associates, and then finally changed into 1951 into Knoll International, a name still in force.
The two spouses immediately call Florence Knoll’s classmates to design for the company such as Eero Saarinen, son of the director of the school, the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen, and Harry Bertoia, at the registry office Arieto Bertola sculptor and designer of origins Italian. Everyone involved within the Knoll embraces the creative genius of the Bauhaus and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which was then an American interpretation of the Bauhaus school itself, to create new types of furniture and environments for everyday life, for home and work. Craftsmanship combined with technology through the use of design fixes their point of view and shapes the values that still live within the company today.
In 1957 Eero Saarinen designs what is still the most successful product of Knoll today, or the Tulip series, made up of chairs, tables and small tables with continuity between the shell and the base, convinced that “the lower parts of the tables and chairs create an intricate and irritating confusion … wanting to end the chaos of the legs; wanting to make a chair a unit again. ” The Tulip table, better known by the name of Saarinen, is still today the best-selling, most imitated and most desired table by design enthusiasts in its variants with the top in white or black laminate, or in marble in multiple colors.
Harry Bertoia instead creates a collection of chairs for the Knoll, inspired by those of the Eames couple, where the theme of discontinuity returns: a steel rod easel support holds a steel rod mesh body of various shapes. The Bertoia collection turns out to be a true masterpiece, a meeting point between design and art: a light and transparent chair, where the air, which passes through the metal mesh, becomes the true protagonist of the project.
Since the early years, Knoll has distinguished itself from the other famous American furniture design company, Herman Miller, for the choice of an extremely rigorous and rationalist design and for the courageous re-presentation on the market of some historic furnishings such as those designed by the Maestro. Mies Van Der Rohe: the Barcelon collection, which still remains one of the best-known design icons today.
Following the premature death of Hans Knoll in 1955, his wife Florence took over the reins of the company, preferring then to leave the presidency in 1960 to fill the position of artistic director of the design department; throughout his long life his motto will be “Good Design is Good Business”. Florence Knoll designs some very elegant furnishings for her company, which are useful for furnishing public and private spaces, among the most important in America, for illustrious private customers or public companies. Among them we can remember the Florence Knoll sofa with rigorous shapes, on a chromed steel structure, the tables with elementary and refined shapes with marble or glass tops and the containers, later many imitated, in natural or lacquered wood on a steel base polished chrome.
In more recent years, Knoll has made use of the collaboration of the best contemporary international designers such as Frank O. Ghery, Piero Lissoni, Barber Osgerby.