Design Stories: Formafantasma and the lights for Flos

By entering the Milan studio of Formafantasma - Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin - you get the subtle but persistent feeling that something is about to happen. Maybe it is because of the adrenaline rush coming out from the reclaimed industrial spaces of Via Assab, at the end of Via Padova, an area of Milan not particularly glam but, for this reason, perhaps more authentic and vibrant with energy. Or it may be because of the awareness of being in a hotbed of ideas where form is not the ultimate purpose of the project but rather an ectoplasmic entity: a ghost, in fact. We are welcomed by their little dog Terra, followed closely by Simone who leads us into a cool and pleasantly essential environment, among packaging of lamps, plants, bare furniture and an order that reigns supreme. It is no coincidence that in this place, where the impalpable matter of ideas seems to impregnate the air like oxygen, to guide the conversation is the topic of light, “immaterial material” par excellence, which the two designers have been scanning for years. And it is immediately a lapidary statement: “For us,” Simone and Andrea confirm, "designing light/with light is very passionate and, we would dare say, even fun. Moreover, compared to other types of products - for example...the sofa -, designing with light comes quite easy to us, perhaps because of the abstract and intangible nature of this material, which is very close to the spirit of our work, not so much interested in giving a ‘shape’ to objects."

Formafantasma

An alchemy between the designer duo and light as a design material which finds substance in the synergy with Flos, a company with a solid balance between expressiveness and technique, which well meets the practice's aptitude. Years ago, Simone and Andrea were introduced to Piero Gandini (Executive Chairman and Artistic Supervisor of the Flos B&B Italia Group, Editor's note) by artist Francesco Vezzoli, who was already familiar with their work and, from then, a multi-year collaboration made of mutual esteem sprang up.

“Piero has been a key figure in the evolution of our collaboration with Flos, even though we had to be careful to ‘keep him at bay’ and not undergo his impetuosity (Simone laughs): we say this with affection and great appreciation. Piero comes from a ‘real’ design culture and has a very similar vision to ours in facing the design challenge; if he intervenes in the project, he always does it with a critical and constructive approach. In addition, he is an entrepreneur, we are not, and this adds to our expertise".

Formafantasma designed three different products for Flos, developed in close collaboration with the company's tech team and all with a considerable experimental and innovative touch. In the first two works, fil rouge has been the exploration of the technical and figurative potential of the power cable, an element that is usually kept concealed and instead the two turn it into the climax of the project: from WireRing (2018), a lamp that is an exercise in “miniaturization,” to WireLine (2021) that consecrates the industrial feel of the cable, to SuperWire (2024), the latest product, which experiments with the light source marking a step change in LED lighting.

As Simone states, "The three projects were generative of each other. In the first (WireRing), the basic idea was to minimize the object, taking it to its simplest elements, with a focus on engineering the power cable: a process that was further refined with the second project (WireLine)".

For SuperWire, the designers were faced with a new exploratory “possibility”: as they say, “in design you work either by problem or by possibility”. In the words of Formafantasma: "In SuperWire, the tech team at Flos had developed some research on soft LED filaments that looked like ‘spaghetti’. As soon as we saw them, we grasped their potential and started working on them. From there, it was four years of experimentation before we got to the final product. Years in which the path was never linear but made up of back and forth because, as David Lynch said, ideas are not in the mind, but it is the mind that intercepts them while they are already floating in the air".

SuperWire is a complex project that the studio describes as their “most extreme and visionary” idea of light. There are many innovative elements, from the expressive use of plate glass, to the fact that it can be completely disassembled by simple exposed screws, to the possibility of easy removal of the light source (designed ad hoc and engineered by Flos) even by those without technical skills: the advantage is that, if there is a breakdown, there is no need to return the whole lamp. The result is a product with an Art Deco appeal but bluntly contemporary, thanks to the peculiar technology, and sustainable, thanks to its complete disassembly and repairability even by single parts.

Recently, the collaboration with Flos continued within the framework of the last Salone del Mobile with two narrative experiences involving space and product: the stand at Euroluce, a telling of seven new Flos collections by seven designers, and the installation of the Milan Showroom in Corso Monforte, with the introduction of SuperWire. In the former, the installation supported by a series of seven videos (The Light of the Mind, developed by director Nicolò Terraneo with Formafantasma) focuses on the product (because, as Simone says, “Flos doesn't need spectacularization: the product already talks for itself”) and the nonlinear creative process of each author. In the Showroom, the focus is on presenting SuperWire in its different variants and set-up possibilities, in a very scenic way.

We conclude by pushing the dialogue from the luminous filament to the Hyperuranium of ideas for a (possibly) better future through design as well, citing the urgency remarked by Piero Gandini to “return poetry and freedom” to the design. And Simone adds, "Designing has to do with living in the world, and the designer faces the world passionately. Unfortunately, there is a whole other design culture, according to which the product springs from storytelling, when it should be the other way around. Poetry comes out when we disengage ourselves not from reality but from the storytelling of the project as a goal in itself. We must bring the design back to reality: the design must make sense. And the sense is different for each designer".

Video of SuperWire (excerpt from the video installation The Light of the Mind, curated by Formafantasma, directed by Nicolò Terraneo)

What about freedom? For Formafantasma, the constraints lie mainly in the strategies imposed by marketing: "Today, the function of a product is the accumulation of capital, and this is true for any company. But we need to go beyond that and ask what the term ‘function’ means. In this dominant logic, there can still be a design counterculture of resistance, made up of research into new solutions to real needs and technological innovation, to give new nuances to the concept of function and enrich the quality of life." Let there be light.

Opening image: Formafantasma at the Flos showroom in Milan. Photo by Daniele Ratti for Domus. Milan Design Week 2025