If we were to make a mood board for each decade...
It would probably look something like this,
right?
Even if we didn’t live through the ‘50s,
‘60s, and the ‘70s…
We can pretty much agree on the defining look of the time.
This is my favorite—the ‘80s.
And minus the questionable hairstyles...
the ‘80s set the trend for bright colors,
graphic patterns, and geometric shapes.
Which made me wonder, who created the look of the ‘80s?
Is it even possible to point to a specific
person or a moment in time?
Well, in this case, we can.
GLENN: I think it’d be hard for us to think of any other
design phenomenon that could be located as specifically to a group of people…
The Memphis Group dominated the design world
in the ‘80s.
The collective led by Italian architect Ettore
Sottsass came together in 1981.
They had a huge impact on the postmodern designs of the decade.
GLENN: Memphis is probably as influential as a design group there has ever been.
And they did originate a lot of that visual vocabulary.
So I do give them a lot of the credit for the look of the
'80s for sure.
Although majority were Italians, the group had architects and designers
from all around the world.
Japan, France, Britain, Austria, America...
And unlike the name, the group wasn’t from Tennessee.
They were actually based in Milan, Italy.
The name Memphis came from a Bob Dylan song
that was playing during a meeting.
“..mobile with the Memphis blues again”
First thing to know about Memphis
is that it comes out of a long tradition
of Radical design in Italy
in the 1960s.
Radical design was a movement—formed by architects
in reaction to the minimal and practical aesthetics
of modernism.
“Modernism was put into some kind of  a
box.
We gave it a lot of rules—which I think a lot of people felt trapped within these rules.”
Radical design allowed designers to express
distortion and irony, moving far away from
functionality of design.
Sottsass was a big proponent of the movement.
According to the Guardian, he tried to stay away from modernist way of designing
“like a well-educated schoolboy.”
He didn’t follow the rules, which made the
Memphis Group’s work unpredictable.
PETER: We wanted to be excited.
We wanted to be anxious. We wanted to be thrilled.
This is Peter Shire, one of two Americans
who were a part of the Memphis Group.
PETER: We were doing it mechanically, because we didn't have the computers.
They existed—We were seeing signs of it.
And you look at that kind of overlay.
Look at Memphis—You know, pattern on pattern with stuff flying out.
In 1981, the group showed their work for the
first time at the Milan design fair.
The entire collection was named after luxury
hotels.
GLENN: The Carlton… the Belair Chair that Peter
Shire did...
The Plaza Vanity that Michael Graves did.
Which is like a joke, right?
About taking plastic laminates and
putting it on cheap composition wood, and naming it after
luxury hotels… it's all part of this faux-chic
thing that they were interested in.
The New York Times wrote that the show “appalled
some and amused others but put everyone attending
the fair in a state of high excitement.”
GLENN: Sottsass and one of the other designers were on their way to the opening on a taxi, and they thought
a terrorist bomb had gone off in downtown Milan.
They realized gradually that the chaos and
crowding was actually because of their own exhibition.
They got out and walked, and it was like a mob scene.
Their work spread quickly through design magazines
that were popular at the time.
And soon enough you saw their influence everywhere.
GLENN: I always think it’s important that it happened
virtually simultaneously with MTV
which also launched in 1981.
And if you think about the logo of MTV with
all those colors and patterns
and the kind of scratchy graphics.
Clearly relates very closely to some of the graphic design ideas that were coming out of Italy
that were context in which Memphis emerged.
But, despite the impact that the group had, their furniture
never quite made it in to people’s homes.
GLENN: It was very very unusual to decorate with
Memphis at that time.
There’s only one single piece of furniture from Memphis that was ever mass produced
and that's the First Chair.
I think about 3000 of those were made.
With a circular disk at the back and two black
orbs to rest your arms, the design was unlike
any other chair on the market in 1983.
PETER: Which was a brilliant idea and a terrible chair.
But the trouble is that they always fell
over backwards.
And that was pretty funny.
A few years later, Sottsass left the group
to build his own studio, and the Memphis Group
held their last show in 1987.
GLENN: Whenever people would say to me what would
be the ending of postmodern period,
I would say more or less it is around 1987.
Because there is a recession then, that takes some of the air out of the art market—
and it's like a real turning point.
The life of the Memphis Group was short lived,
6 years to be exact.
And even though their designs failed to serve
a function in people’s homes…
they left a colorful mark in history and inspired
many designers to come.
Like this first Apple watch which was created
in 1995.
They were given out for free to anyone who
bought the Mac System.
Or this 2011 Dior couture show, which was
an ode to Memphis design.
Karl Lagerfeld was among the few who collected
their pieces.
And the Sotheby’s Auction House sold
David Bowie’s Memphis collection last year—which also included Peter’s work.
The designs have a distinctive look that continues to
come up time and again...
And that’s how design works sometimes, it often spreads around the world
without the designers’ names attached.
So even if you recognize this look
as the look of the ‘80s,
most people probably have
never heard of Memphis at all.
PETER: I should ask somebody.
I should ask a man on the street.
Most people would go
“...What?”
