The London-based designer Michael Anastassiades has designed lighting for FLOS that strikes a modern flair. His unforgettable models like IC Lights, Copycat, Extra, Overlap, Last Quarter, and String Lights have been suspended with grace and simplicity. This April, the designer is showing his “Arrangements” in the VIP room of miart in the FLOS showroom during Salone del Mobile.
Anastassiades’s starting point for “Arrangements” was to create a modular system of geometric light elements that can be customized to individual taste. “I wanted the freedom to go back to the user,” he said. “You have elements that you can choose
from to create your own arrangement.” The pieces—Line, Broken Line, Round S, Round M, Round L, Drop Up, Drop Down, Square Small, and Square Large—hang delicately, connected to one another. To learn more about “Arrangements” for FLOS, Whitewaller spoke with Anastassiades.
@Euroluce 2017
WHITEWALLER: Tell us a bit about your new “Arrangements” collection for FLOS.
MICHAEL ANASTASSIADES: The collection itself was first launched and shown in Salone del Mobile in 2017. It’s a beautiful collection and modular lighting concept. You are free, as a user, to create your chandelier. You buy different geometrical elements and simply loop them together to create your own fixture. You can change the fixture even after you purchase it. You can start with a basic fixture and keep adding to it. This is the beauty of it—that it’s never the same. That creativity was a very important aspect for me—giving creativity back to the user. It’s almost like jewelry.
@Euroluce 2017
WW: Speaking of jewelry, you previously said you’ve always been fascinated by the parallel that exists between lighting and
jewelry. Where did this begin?
MA: I’m always interested in that parallel because I really believe they address the same issues. It’s not accidental that even if
you look at the definition of a pendant, it has two meanings. One is a light that hangs from the ceiling, and the other is a piece of jewelry that hangs from the neck.
Courtesy of Michael Anastassiades.
WW: What about FLOS as a companyspeaks to you as a designer?
MA: They provide me with the tools that I need in order to come up with, and realize, all of these ideas. Their technical support and technical knowledge, and R&D, is amazing. It’s very rare to find a company at that level that can work with you and be in tune with you and in total agreement. What FLOS has given me is freedom.
WW: You launched your studio in 1994, and established your own lighting brand, Michael Anastassiades Ltd., in 2007 to produce signature pieces of lighting, furniture, jewelry, and tabletop objects. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the industry since?
MA: When I started my brand, it was still at the time of incandescent bulbs. But shortly after I established my brand, those bulbs that I started using were obsolete. It was a very drastic change. And all of a sudden, LED technology was the same to use. So it’s been a big challenge, but something had to change. And it was a good change because it encouraged people to approach lighting differently. That was the only way that could have happened in order to accelerate that change.
