Product Design: Darkroom launch collection inspired by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass

Date
23 September 2013

It was London Design Festival last week and so creative stores city-wide joined in the excitement; perhaps none more so than Darkroom. The design accessories store launched a season of products based on the work of Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass using themes he introduced during his time with the legendary Memphis group.

The accompanying installation, called So Sottsass, has seen the store transformed into an Aladdin’s cave of hand-painted laminated-style patterns, garish prints and wacky colour combinations, in products created in collaboration with artists and designers including Studio Pepe, Spotti Edizione, Jamie Julien-Brown, Elke Kramer, and Zuzunaga.

The store have looked to apply some of Sottsass’ playful spirit to the collection, nudging gently at the assigned roles of products from furniture and fashion to textiles and stationery, while pushing the boundaries of design. The store explain: “For our So Sottsass season, Darkroom will be drawing on the designer’s bright and playful palette from his time with the legendary Memphis Group, and we’ll also be finding inspiration from the rough-edged modernism of his early ceramics and glassworks, hewn with an eye for structural simplicity and a penchant for wistful futurism.”

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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Darkroom: So Sottsass

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About the Author

Maisie Skidmore

Maisie joined It’s Nice That fresh out of university in the summer of 2013 as an intern before joining full time as an Assistant Editor. Maisie left It’s Nice That in July 2015.

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