Even if you can’t name it, you’ve no doubt seen it—in photographs of modern yet daring homes, film stills, and yes, museum galleries. But the illustrious Bocca, or Lips, sofa, which is produced by Italian company Gufram, seems to have a rich future on its horizon. This year, the design turns 50, and to celebrate, the brand has released 25 new colorways. Below, Gufram’s art director Charley Vezza tells AD PRO all about the product’s past and present, as well as why exactly it looms so large in his childhood memories.
AD PRO: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of the sofa?
Charley Vezza: The story of the Bocca sofa is very peculiar: Studio 65 designed it in 1970 for a beauty center in Milan. Thinking about it, it is quite funny that such an iconic design was not made to be a best-selling piece, but rather as part of a bespoke contract project. Times were very different—the product was made with a mold, and making a mold for a one-of-a-kind design is not economical. But Gufram was, and still is, a laboratory which worked on handmade and crafted pieces, and they accepted the challenge. With time the brand understood its potential and added the Bocca to its catalogue.
AD PRO: What about its ties to Surrealism?
CV: It is true that the first artist to come up with the idea of transforming lips into a seating system was Salvador Dalí, but the actual origin of the Bocca is very different. It was a sofa created for an interiors project, and its inspiration was more about the absolute abstraction of beauty [as opposed to] an homage to or a reinterpretation of Surrealism. On the other hand, [the Italian] Radical Design [period] has surrealist undertones. Radical Design pieces are not just examples of furniture, they are domestic sculptures which can transform a room into a surrealist space.
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AD PRO: Are there any hidden facts or fun anecdotes about the Bocca’s history?
CV: The story of the sofa is very well known by now. But there is a personal one I would like to share. As a child, I was surrounded by Gufram pieces in my family home. I had a strong connection with many of them, and almost treated them as my imaginary friends. But the Bocca was placed at the end of the stairs, and every time I would go down I was afraid to fall and to be eaten by this gigantic mouth! For years, it was my least favorite piece for this reason.
AD PRO: How do you imagine the sofa functioning in the 21st century?
CV: Looking at the long life that the Lips sofa has had, I feel more and more that it has kind of lost its “sofa” vibe, so to speak. Being exhibited all around the world in museums and galleries, next to artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, has changed the perception people have of it. They are almost afraid to use it! The 25 new colors make the Bocca more approachable. And it can be contextualized more easily, making it simpler for the sofa to be used both in people’s homes and in other interiors projects.
AD PRO: How did you all settle on the new colors?
CV: For the colors, we worked with a makeup artist, trying to imagine the Lips sofa as actual lips to be decorated with the most up-to-date lipstick tones.
The textile cover of the Lips sofa is a bi-stretch fabric, which can adhere perfectly to the curvy shapes of the piece. The original red fabric was shiny, but it had some limitations in terms of colors. We searched a lot for the right partner to develop the new cover, and we found this amazing producer in Piedmont, the Italian region where Gufram is based. We developed with them a more textured and structured fabric, made from a unique wool fiber that ensures a natural touch.
AD PRO: What challenges are inherent when working with a famous piece like this?
CV: Working with the Bocca is not challenging per se, but what is challenging is to develop projects that can live up to the standard set by Gufram’s Radical Design icons, which include other amazing pieces like Cactus. On the other hand, approaching a masterpiece like Bocca means updating it without ruining its symbolism. That is why we never produced any merchandise for this sofa. It would have been so easy, but at the same time, we would have ruined its aura and its energy.
