Collection: Arflex

Founded in Milan in 1947, Arflex had its origins in the production of upholstered sofas and armchairs and tables, chairs, lighting and accessories for indoors and out. Thanks to its founders' roots in big industry and their know-how in upholstered furniture, they moved the company over to a more industrial production process, and began to experiment with innovative materials like foam rubber and elastic tape. The company continued to grow, attracting such names in architecture and design. Arflex has won many international awards from the Compasso d'Oro to the Triennale Gold Medal to the Wallpaper Awards to the Emu Image Award; its products are on permanent display at MoMA in New York, the Milan Triennale, the Tokyo Triennale and the Chicago Athenaeum. Research, even in the fields of culture and sociology, an innovative spirit and attention to detail have characterized the company since the 1950s. That is why Arflex is still a leading name on the international furniture scene.

Arflex. A story of Italian design

The creative and structured minds of Carlo Barassi and Renato Teani, pillars of the Pirelli company, conceived of Arflex in an office in the heart of Milan in 1947. Together with some other partners, they imagined the use of new materials in the furnishings sector. After only four years, the company's first models were successfully presented at the Milan Triennale. Technology and aesthetics have accompanied the company ever since. Between 1951 and 1954, Arflex produced seats for cars like the Fiat Topolino, making automobile travel more comfortable. Before the 1960s, the company was already known around Europe. Starting in the second half of that decade, Arflex produced some genuinely innovative and still-iconic pieces like the Gaia armchair (1965) in polyester resin and fiberglass and the innovative Serpentone sofa by Cini Boeri (1971) with its potentially infinite length and enveloping forms.
In the 1990s/2000s, the company's new artistic director, Carlo Colombo, believed that some of its most successful models were still very current. For example, he revised and reissued Cocca, a garden armchair in polyurethane with armrests. The sturdy shell is made from a single mold available in many colors and padded with soft, enveloping, comfortable goose down cushions. Although designed for outdoor use, this armchair fits stylishly into many interiors.
At the same time, the company produced other lines of furniture like the Hillside series, which also includes a spacious horizontal wall unit designed by the Swedish office Claesson Koivisto Rune. This collection uses the box as a modular unit that can adapt to any spatial context and can be combined with other pieces in different sizes and shapes from the same series. In this way, interiors can be continuously reinvented according to the user's creative whims.

Arflex solutions for a more comfortable life

In 2013, the Stockholm-based office Claesson Koivisto Rune created a collection that immediately became an icon. Still produced today, Hug is a series of upholstered armchairs and sofas with a table to complete it. It all started with an armchair with leather armrests and a metal frame, walnut and oak profiles, and polyurethane foam padding. Its extreme comfort is accompanied by a very distinctive look defined by the two softly enveloping armrests (hence the name Hug), creating a reassuring sense of personal space. With its high backrest, the sofa also adheres to the same principles as the chair and is available in different colors. It is small in size but big in comfort and relaxation.
A rectangular marble table was later added to the collection as an addition to the project. Made of metal lacquered in Hug colors with adjustable legs and wooden profiles, it has a large marble surface that makes it suitable for residential interiors, like the rest of the collection. Hug is just one of the many Arflex lines that have become iconic over the years. It is inspired by the sixties and seventies, reinterpreted only partially in a more modern key, remaining faithful to its roots.
As regards outdoor furniture, Arflex also produces the Cloud Collection by Carlo Colombo, a garden line that includes a beautiful steel sofa with elastic straps. With its soft and cozy forms, the sofa fits naturally into any outdoor space among the trees or on a lawn. It is exceptionally comfortable thanks to flexible straps that pamper anyone who sits on it. The cushions and mattresses come in fabrics suitable for outdoor use. Rubycon, a minimal and elegant wooden cupboard with hinged doors, will grace any living area. The elements are cube-shaped containers that can be stacked to create a vertical column or mounted horizontally side by side. Available in custom colors and dimensions, the cubes have no handles or visible knobs and can be used in innumerable ways.