With Bohemian 72, Gubi celebrates two anniversaries: not only the Italian designer Gabriella Crespi would have turned 100 this year, but her rattan furniture will also celebrate its 50thbirthday in 2022.
Born in 1922, Gabriella Crespi grew up in Tuscany in a wealthy family. A great lover of the work of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, she studied architecture at the Politecnico in Milan, which even at the time testified to her free spirit: we were in the 1940s and women were few present on the benches of universities. Over the next two decades, she launched her own label and made small art objects that Christian Dior, to name just one, bought for his boutiques.
In 1972, Gabriella Crespi established herself in the world of design thanks to her furniture combining sensuality, bohemian inspiration and Italian opulence. Gubi's Bohemian 72 collection, developed in collaboration with Gabriella Crespi Archivo, fits perfectly into this tradition: the curves are soft, the shape is sculptural and rattan is king.
At the time, all pieces are made to order for private interior projects. The reissue of Gubi, which includes a sofa, a lounge chair, a pouf and a table lamp, will be available as standard from mid-March. The collection is meant to be refreshing, summery and welcoming, no doubt because the designer imagined it in the spring on the terrace of her Milanese apartment.
Rattan and soft curves: the collection is perfectly in line with the seventies revival
The 70's are making a comeback in our interiors and rattan is perfectly in line with this trend. Its manufacture is nevertheless very complex: the rods are particularly rigid and must be passed through a steam oven to be bent. Once softened, each rattan rod is shaped by hand around a gauge that Gubi had made according to Crespi's drawings. Finally, the rods are painted in a dark color and treated with a special varnish so that the material shimmers in the light.
Translation by Sandra Proutry-Skrzypek.
