The Memphis Group

The Memphis group was a group of Italian designers and architects who created a series of highly influential products in the 1980's. it was founded in Milan and their aim was to refresh, strengthen the radical design and to design a new creative approach to design. The leader of the group was Ettore Sottsass and the name Memphis came from the song Memphis blues which belonged to Bob Dylan. While listening to music with his ‘group’ at his house planning about their new group Ettore came up with the idea to name it Memphis. The Memphis groups designers were Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Maro Zanini, Mateo Thun, Nathalie de Pasquier and George Sowden. 

They made beautiful and bizarre designs, with bright vibrant colours, textures, use of different materials, well several materials in one most often and the intentionally mocked the presentations of good design.

Martine Bedine, Super Lamp for Memphis

They convinced Abet to make new laminates printed with extraordinary vibrant patterns inspired by pop art, op art and electronic imagery.

Ernesto Gismondi became the head of the group later on and on the 18th of September 1981 the group showed their work for the first time. All designs were designed by an international group of architects and designers inclugin Hans Hollein, Shiro Kuramata, Peter Shire, Javier Mariscal, Massanori Umeda and Michael Graves. The group always agreed, accepted the Memphis was a trend/phase tied to the briefness of fashion and in 1988 when its popularity started to decrease Sottsass separated it. Although Memphis was a short lived phase its youthful vitality and humor was central to the internationalization of post modernism.

Through my research I've found a fashion show Dior made with inspiration from the Memphis Group's designs.

mirror 80. 2011. Memphis Design Meets Haute Couture: Christian Dior’s Fall-Winter Collection. [ONLINE] Available at: http://mirror80.com/2011/07/memphis-design-meets-haute-couture-christian-diors-fall-and-winter-collection/. [Accessed 08 February 14].

juilies juice. 2011. memphis dior. [ONLINE] Available at: http://juliesjuice.wordpress.com/category/memphis-design/. [Accessed 08 February 14].

Thames & Hudson, T&H, 2004. design since 1900. 2nd ed. singapore: C.C Graphics.