Living Divani narrates 50 years of success, family history, collaboration, in an exhibition and a talk inside the store of the long-term London-based dealer Coexistence, in the lively Islington district.
The installation, titled Coexhibition: Timeless Design, until 9 March, retraces – also in graphic terms, through a timeline on the wall – the five decades of the brand founded in 1969 by Luigi Bestetti and Renata Pozzoli, who sharing the same dream opened an upholstery shop in Milan, and then moved in the 1970s to Brianza, first to Giussano and then to Anzano del Parco, the present location of the firm.
For the occasion, the Coexistence store has redesigned its spaces, starting with the windows enlivened by the Pebble vanity by Studio Lanzavecchia + Wai and the new Greene chair by David Lopez Quincoces.
Past the entrance the protagonist is the modular and informal Extrasoft sofa, designed in 2008 by Piero Lissoni, art director of the company for 30 years, an ultra-comfortable product that is still a bestseller in its dual indoor and outdoor versions.
The path continues along a luminous corridor whose wall presents Frog, the seat designed in 1995 by Piero Lissoni that changed our way of sitting and thinking about relaxation, hung on the wall as if ready to leap – just like a frog – in its new ultra-light variation in carbon fiber and woven polyester, painted red. The corridor is lit by the Light with a Table lamp by Keiji Takeuchi, a reminder of urban streetlamps, while at the back visitors meet the Galileo mirror by Mario Ferrarini and the Era Settee by David Lopez Quincoces.
David Lopez Quincoces and Carola Bestetti, head of marketing & communication of Living Divani
In the other room, on the wall, the graphic timeline retraces the evolution of the company, punctuated by the Family Chair series by Junya Ishigami, with its different rather anthropomorphic silhouettes, like the members of a family. The show reached its high point with the talk Timeless Design, on 13 February, during which Carola Bestetti, head of marketing and communication of Living Divani and the second generation of the founding family, spoke of the DNA and philosophy of the brand, timeless style marked by clean, rigorous lines, and the relationship with the Spanish architect David Lopez Quincoces, one of the designers who has contributed to shape the present image of the firm.
Half a century of history, narrated with a bit of humor in a collectible book created with the graphic design studio Graph.X by Piero Lissoni as a game, where each product becomes a character and each page represents inspirations, workmanship, anecdotes, through stickers, reflecting pages, origami, photographs, like a family album. A family known as Living Divani.
