Swann Bourotte

With enduring designs like the immensely plush, Pop art–inspired Togo lounge chair and sofa, Ligne Roset has become synonymous with radical luxury furniture. However, when Antoine Roset (1841–93) started the company in 1860 in the small French town of Oussiat, its focus was on wooden umbrella handles.

In 1892, Ligne Roset’s founder expanded with a property in Montagnieu where he set up a wood-processing factory, eventually expanding into manufacturing chairs. After his death, his wife, Marie-Victorine, took over before his son, Emile Roset, began leading the company in the 1910s. It wasn’t until after World War II that Antoine’s grandson, Jean Roset, would recognize the need for furniture in settings like schools, hospitals and retirement homes and take inspiration from Scandinavian modern design for functional pieces made primarily from affordable beech.

Under Jean, Ligne Roset supplied quite a few European institutions with beautiful wood furnishings. In the 1970s, he shifted the company’s focus again, this time looking to domestic and residential markets. Around this time, Jean’s two sons, Pierre and Michel, joined the company. Ligne Roset opened its first store in 1973 with one of the most popular collections being designer Michel Ducaroy’s Togo modular sofa and chairs — classics of contemporary French design that look like oversize bent pillows.

After the success of this initial designer collaboration, Ligne Roset brought on more guest designers over the following decades, including Didier Gomez, Pascal Mourgue, Peter Maly, Pierre Paulin, Inga Sempé and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec. Paulin’s Elysée sofa and Pumpkin chair — designed in 1971 for Elysée Palace — are among the brand’s most popular pieces.

The brand continues to be run by the Roset family who works on revolutionary furniture in partnership with a variety of collaborators. It has operated in Briord since 1973 where it produces its iconically sleek and innovative pieces.

Find new and vintage Ligne Roset sofas, lounge chairs, tables and other furniture on 1stDibs.

The modern floor lamp is an evolution of torchères — tall floor candelabras that originated in France as a revolutionary development in lighting homes toward the end of the 17th century. Owing to the advent of electricity and the introduction of new materials as a part of lighting design, floor lamps have taken on new forms and configurations over the years. 

In the early 1920s, Art Deco lighting artisans worked with dark woods and modern metals, introducing unique designs that still inspire the look of modern floor lamps developed by contemporary firms such as Luxxu. 

Popular mid-century floor lamps include everything from the enchanting fixtures by the Italian lighting artisans at Stilnovo to the distinctly functional Grasshopper floor lamp created by Scandinavian design pioneer Greta Magnusson-Grossman to the Paracarro floor lamp by the Venetian master glass workers at Mazzega. Among the more celebrated names in mid-century lighting design are Milanese innovators Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, who, along with their eldest brother, Livio, worked for their own firm as architects and designers. While Livio departed the practice in 1952, Achille and Pier Giacomo would go on to design the Arco floor lamp, the Toio floor lamp and more for legendary lighting brands such as FLOS. 

Today’s upscale interiors frequently integrate the otherworldly custom lighting solutions created by a wealth of contemporary firms and designers such as Spain’s Masquespacio, whose Wink floor lamps integrate gold as well as fabric fringes. 

Visual artists and industrial designers have a penchant for floor lamps, possibly because they’re so often a clever marriage of design and the functions of lighting. A good floor lamp can change the mood of any room while adding a touch of elegance to your entire space. Find yours now on 1stDibs.