The meaning of Flos is ‘Flower’ in Latin. We learned that while writing this piece, and it makes perfect sense. Flos certainly has blossomed since its beginnings in 1960. Dino Gavino and the Eisenkeil factory had been producing furniture but in the early 1960s Gavino became convinced that lighting was to be the new direction. Using new technology and with the design genius of the Castiglioni brothers and the Scarpa duo they began to create incredible designs such as Taraxacum and Fantasma, both still best sellers today.
Sergio Gandini began managing Flos in 1963, and the revolutionary Arco lamp was created by the Castiglioni brothers. From this point until the mid 80’s, the list of Flos lighting that has formed the history of Italian design is endless, but then Piero Gandini met a young designer called Philippe Stark and together they created Miss Sissi. 8000 were sold in 10 days, 100,000 in one year. The list of young designers grew and grew, Marc Newson, Jasper Morrison, Konstantin Grcic, with Philippe Starck always as an anchor. More recently the complete genius of Michael Anastassiades has dominated the collection and without a doubt Flos is the greatest lighting company in the world.
