Flos is an Italian lighting company that produces many design icons, including the Arco floor lamp and the Snoopy and Taccia lamps. Flos was born in 1960 in Merano, northern Italy. At the time, Dino Gavina had borrowed an American technique, also researched by George Nelson  (who had himself, imported it from Sweden). It allowed to create lighting fixtures that were graphic, innovative and very comfortable to the eye by stretching a synthetic fabric on a light skeleton: this is how the Cocoon, Taraxacum and Fantasma lamps were created, designed by Tobia Scarpa and the Castiglioni brothers. [Read more]
Now under the leadership of Sergio Gandini, who moved the company to Brescia to take advantage of a more dynamic environment, Flos ("flower" in Latin) experienced a rapid development. The company took inspiration from Italian, German and Scandinavian influences to give birth to many design icons, such as the revolutionary Arco by the Castiglioni brothers. In 1972, a major exhibition at New York's MoMA brought the brand to the attention of design enthusiasts around the world.
From then on, Flos grew steadily, thanks to a clever balance between aesthetic audacity, craftsmanship and technology: Gino Sarfatti's Arteluce company was bought at the beginning of the 1980s ; an international exhibition celebrates Achille Castiglioni in 1984 ; Antares, a company specializing in light-emitting diodes, was acquired in 2000 ; international designers collaborate with the group, such as French designers Philippe Starck and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Englishmen Jasper Morrison, Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, German artist Konstantin Grcic, Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, Michael Anastassiades from Cyprus and Japanese studio Nendo.
