Every so often a company produces a design so iconic that it comes to symbolize its entire history. For Studio 65, the Italian avant-garde design collective cofounded by Franco Audrito, Piero Gatti and others, this was the Bocca sofa — alternatively known as the “lips sofa,” “red lip sofa,” “Dalí sofa” or Marilyn sofa.”
Studio 65’s lip-shaped seat — modeled after a singular feature from Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí’s portrait of Mae West — became a design icon shortly after its release in 1970 and remains a beloved collector’s item today. The Bocca symbolizes Studio 65’s playful, subversive approach to design. The collective took shape in Turin in 1965 with the goal of avant-garde experimentation. The group would eventually grow to comprise artists, designers and poets, including Roberta Garosci, Enzo Bertone, Paolo Morello and Paolo Rondelli. It would also play a central role in the Italian Radical design movement, the practitioners of which found inspiration in Pop art, minimalism and Arte Povera.
The Bocca sofa was born of one of Audrito’s earliest commissions — to design a gym in Milan — which he accepted just a year after graduating from architecture school. The collective enlisted Italian manufacturer Gufram, a firm at the forefront of Italian Radical design, to create a bold red sofa in the shape of plump lips; it was dubbed Marilyn after Ms. Monroe and was an instant sensation when installed at the fitness center.
Studio 65 would follow this with the also iconic Capitello side chair (another Gufram collaboration, now in the permanent collection at The Met), whose reimagining of a decapitated marble classical architectural column in squishy foam was an on-the-nose expression of the group’s pushback to traditional design. It’s a nod they iterated with the Attica coffee table, whose form appears sliced from an oversize column.
Though Studio 65 still operates as an architecture studio under the leadership of Audrito today, the original collective broke up in the late 1970s, making its output from the past decade sought-after fodder for collectors of postmodern, Radical and Italian design.
Find Studio 65 chairs, sofas and other furniture on 1stDibs.
Studio 65 Bocca or Marilyn Sofa in Red Fabric by Gufram 1970s
By Gufram Furniture, Studio 65
Located in Cascina, Pisa
Bocca or Marilyn sofa with structure in expanded polyurethane foam covered with red fabric, the cover is completely removable. This sofa was designed by Studio 65 and produced by Guf...
Fabric, Foam
GUFRAM Pink Lady Couch by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in La Morra, Cuneo
Bocca, the original 1970 lips-shaped couch is only Gufram's. This sensual couch, which is ideal for a tête-à-tête, has entered the collective imagination on par with Andy Warhol's works, as well as other pop art masterpieces...
Other
GUFRAM Dark Lady Couch by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in La Morra, Cuneo
Bocca, the original 1970 lips-shaped couch is only Gufram's. This sensual couch, which is ideal for a tête-à-tête, has entered the collective imagination ...
Other
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Gufram Furniture, Studio 65
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Gufram Furniture, Studio 65
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Gufram Furniture, Studio 65
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional ho...
Wool
Customizable Gufram Bocca Sofa by Studio 65
By Studio 65, Gufram Furniture
Located in New York, NY
Born to satisfy the demand of a private customer, it’s been featured since then on dedicated - but not only - magazine covers, and it is still displayed in the most unconventional houses in the world, and in the important museums around the globe. We’re talking about Bocca, the famous red sofa shaped as giant lips. Getting their inspiration from the 1935 Portrait of Mae West by surreal artist Dalì, as well as from the hot red lips of Hollywood stars, Studio 65 architects achieved a masterpiece destined to become an object of cult. Pop DNA, a sensual and provocative soul, feminine and elegant aspect. Bocca is among the most sought-after, loved, and imitated products of home furniture. The 1970 original is exclusively by Gufram. Since 2008 Bocca comes in two new versions: Dark Lady e Pink Lady. The first - rebellious, all black and with an oversize piercing - is the transgressive interpretation, with a marked gothic inclination. Voluptuous and of great impact, Dark lady shows its rock spirit. The other version, Pink Lady, comes with a new lipstick of a more glamorous and fashionable colour - fuchsia - which makes it a settee that is even more the object of talk; the ideal setting for a spectacular glittery modernity. To celebrate its first 50 years of work in 2016, Gufram introduces a special limited series of only fifty Bocca sofas...
Wool
