Sometimes I look at pictures of Italian furniture or interiors from the middle of the 20th century and wish with every fiber of my being that I could transport myself back in time and sit on one of those wild-looking couches or armchairs, wearing a 1960s mod minidress in a bright primary color and maybe holding a cigarette and a martini served in some weird “futuristic” glass. My hair would be cropped short and as glossy as a helmet. It’s funny that I want to be transported into the past in order to feel like I’m in a kind of future. What must it have been like to think about the aesthetics of the future in the way that so many designers and architects did in the mid-20th century? It must have been so exciting, so unknowable, and therefore so ripe for the imagination. A future world devoid of 90-degree angles, a world of clean lines and simple colors. A world without imperfection or inequality. Ah, the future. That realm of promise and idealism. Maybe that’s really why we love, or at least why I love, all those gorgeously funky couches and circular armchairs and inventive, lunar-looking lamps (Dino Gavina, I’m thinking of you): because they promise something. Something just within reach, but just beyond it too. A world that doesn’t resemble ours, but if you convince yourself hard enough, does, just enough. All you have to do is buy one of those couches or armchairs or lamps, wear a killer minidress in a primary color, drink a martini, and guiltily buy that pack of cigarettes you’ve been promising yourself you couldn’t buy. A little fantasy never hurt anyone. Right?
-Eugenie Dalland