(Image re ABC RN/ Wikimedia commons)

My Design File for this week is about the Memphis Group. It’s the sort of stuff that makes your face freeze into a rictus smile of uncertainty. Is it wonderful? Is it hideous? When I first saw it, I thought it was simply incredible but I couldn’t believe anyone would buy anything like it. And yet, when I look back to when we took delivery of a range of various pieces at my workplace at the time, it wasn’t such a huge shift from what we were already selling – our new range of fabrics called Angles was all turquoises and yellows, a marked change from the floral pastels that Designers Guild was then famous for. Change was in the air. What the Memphis Group did was concentrate it, which is why the pieces have a breathless quality – design layered on design, texture and colour on shape and structure.

Still blows the mind because it’s extreme. And long live that…

Read the whole piece here: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bydesign/5017088