Call It A Comeback
How the 1980s Memphis movement is inspiring designers today
While the name might make you think Tennessee, Memphis design got its start in Milan in 1981. Designer Ettore Sottsass founded the Memphis Group with other designers and architects, taking their name from a Bob Dylan song titled “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.” Influenced by Art Deco, Pop Art, and 1950s Kitsch, the Memphis Group sought to disrupt the slick uniformity of Modernism. Memphis’ bright colors, poppy patterns, laminated plastics, and geometric shapes soon became the look of the moment on the trade-show floors of the world’s design fairs and were soon widely adopted in furniture, homeware, and apparel.
Love it or hate it, it’s back. All of a sudden, everyone from young Brooklyn artists to the creative director at Valentino is riffing on the style invented almost 40 years ago, challenging the status quo of the prevailing tasteful, sleek, and teak style that is starting to look all the same.
The movement’s reemergence is seen in ceramics sold at Dimes, Supreme collaborations, and an exhibit at the Met Breuer. However, most contemporary iterations of Memphis are slightly more minimal and refined, using higher quality materials than laminates and plastics.
Most of the original Memphis pieces from the ’80s are still in production and available for purchase through Memphis Milano in Milan, the New York gallery Urban Architecture, as well as Nordstrom’s shoppable “exhibition” at its Seattle flagship store.
Sources: The Cut (May 29, 2017) | Laurel & Wolf (July 13, 2016) | Architectural Digest (August 21, 2018) | Image: Laura Pittaccio