Scarpa is (are?) best of best

Definitive guide to Afra & Tobia's work in lighting, seating, storage, smalls...

Howdy y’all, today’s newsletter goes deep on a designer—well, a pair of them. Auctions will be at the bottom below this. Some immediate housekeeping:

Shirts still for sale, some sizes left:

samisreiss

A post shared by @samisreiss

https://snakeusa.bigcartel.com/product/monk-shirt

Happy Purim to those who celebrate… I dressed up as an Earth Crisis T-shirt collector and a guy who loves to grill…

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AUCTION RESULTS:

Below, the intelligence on auctions paying subscribers were alerted to in last week’s email:

couple hundo each brother

Ledang Memphis style IKEA stools $225, Pallucco metal dresser $700, anon cantilevered wood Shakery/Altoy bench $325 (perfect), Baughman sofa $950, Grcic for Parrish cafe tables, pair $750, Six Colombo-style Chrome desk organizers (and ashtray) $225, a Poltronova Frau Ravello chair $125,Ruggles Umbo chair set (two lots, $500 average), Aulenti sofa for Knoll $2,100, Florence Knoll sofa $1,000; Mangiarotti T1 clock, $150; Six BRNO chairs, $1,100; Eldon for Knoll sofa $850 (wow); Rasmussen for Knoll Kevi office chair, $275 (top five); Baughman-style sofa, $900 (great decade-long couch), Lenor Larsen Paulin ripoff chairs, $275

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LORE: Scarpa

I filed a story this week about lighting (will be out soon) and thru that dug around and found work by Alfa and Tobia Scarpa, the prolific Italian designers from the 70s and 80s who are these days best known for their Soriana sofa. Classic fat ugly (not ugly) sofa. Researching the piece I came across the Celestia lamp that they designed:

after finding out about it from Hayley Jean Clark*. Thanks Hayley. Look at it… it’s out of time… presaging the cloth lamp trend that is predominating now. And here is theirs, from decades ago. Searching their items on Live Auctioneers (the best way to buy furniture if you’re a consumer; here is my explainer on how to use that site) I found a higher number of auctions this month than can be regularly expected, and a wider variety of items than I remembered. They did it all… smalls, lights, chairs, sofas, they did interiors for Benetton… in many beautiful styles. The items look very different from each other too, very broad in style.

*Read her Snake Q&A here, Hayley’s IG, interiors IG

So I’ve dug into the archives and researched what the couple are best known for, their sleeper items, things no one’s ever been on the record about them making, where to buy these items at retail, and where to buy their accessories and smalls. As well—classique Snake auction content (Observer, dozens items), and smalls for the kitchen.