FIVE FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT FLOS

1 The brand moved to its current headquarters and factory in the town of Brescia, east of Milan, in 1964, in order to tap into the area’s long-established metalworking industry.

2 That year, Sergio Gandini set up Flos’s Image Committee to foster a combined vision between himself, as artistic director, and the firm’s designers – whose ranks included Achille Castiglioni, Tobia Scarpa and Philippe Starck. It was an innovative idea that enabled the company to reach unanimous decisions about which products to manufacture and how to promote them.

3 Humour is an important facet of Flos’s designs. The Castiglioni brothers’ asymmetric yet perfectly balanced ‘Snoopy’ light (1967) was inspired by the Peanuts character’s bulbous nose. Achille Castiglioni once said: ‘There has to be irony in design and objects. I see around me a professional disease of taking everything too seriously.’

4 Flos’s UK bestsellers are the ‘Arco’ lamp, Jasper Morrison’s ‘Glo-ball’ opaline glass spheres, Michael Anastassiades’s ‘IC’ light (a sphere balanced on a brass or chrome rod, inspired by juggling) and Philippe Starck’s ‘K Tribe’, a contemporary version of a traditional table lamp.

5 Flos’s first shop opened in Milan in 1968. It often featured Op-art inspired window displays created by Achille Castiglioni.