Flos was founded in 1962 in the northern Italian town of Merano by Dino Gavina and Cesare Cassina. Since then, it has grown significantly, expanding internationally, acquiring other brands, and the company is now owned by Design Holdings.
The company's name, ‘Flos’, is Latin for ‘flower’, reflecting the brand's commitment to creating lighting designs that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
The brand’s history dates back to the 1960s, a golden age for design in Italy, when Flos produced a number of its iconic designs under the creative direction of Sergio Gandini. During this time, the company collaborated with Afra and Tobia Scarpa and the Castiglioni brothers to create a series of new lights that combine playfulness with intelligence.
The collaboration with Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni is particularly significant, with the creation of new material processes, such as the Cocoon which is created by spraying a layer of transparent resin onto a metal frame. Arco is perhaps the most famous design of all, combining geometric shapes in marble and metal to create a light that arcs overhead.
From the early 1970s, Flos launched on the international stage with a number of pieces in the exhibition “Italy, the New Domestic Landscape” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York that were then acquired for the permanent collection. In the 1980s, under the leadership of Pietro Gandini (Pietro’s son), Flos extended its network, collaborating with a number of international designers, including Philippe Starck in the 1980s and many others since including Antonio Citterio, Piero Lissoni, Marcel Wanders, Konstantin Grcic, Jasper Morrison, Patricia Urquiola, Ron Gilad, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Michael Anastassiades.
Now one of the leading manufacturers of lighting worldwide, Flos draws on its rich history while remaining innovative, with many of its lights holding a place in our collective consciousness as culturally-significant.
Flos lights range from the experimental and now iconic Arco, Parentesi and Snoopy in the 1960s and 1970s to the minimalist
designs of the 1980s and 1990s represented by Miss Sissi, to contemporary designs like Tatou and Bellhop.
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