Italian lighting brands Flos has unveiled the new Overlap pendant light that features a metal skeleton covered with a spray-on polymer membrane.
The manufacturer says the Overlap pendant fixture uses the “iconic cocoon-wrapping technique that Flos has used since its inception.”
“Before there was FLOS, Cocoon International (a company based in Merano, Italy) imported a resin from the US, where it had been originally used to protect packages for the US army, and started looking for ways to utilize it in a creative way, suggesting the material be sprinkled around a steel frame to determine the shape of innovative lighting fixtures.”
Scarpa and the Castiglionis invented Fantasma, Viscontea, Taraxacum, and Gatto during the experimentation of the cocoon material and ultimately led to the founding of Flos in 1962. Today, this distinguished genealogy of lighting fixtures is extended with the introduction of Overlap.
Featuring a white powder-painted steel internal structure, Overlap—designed by Michael Anastassiades—utilizes the same material and spray-on technique that was used on those fixtures of old.
“As the name suggests, Overlap features two interlocking rings which intersect at right angles,” Flos expalains. “This interior suspension lamp is among the latest additions to the designer’s repertoire of modern pendant lighting. Providing soft, diffused light, Overlap manages to amaze and amuse in equal measure.”
Overlap comes in two sizes—a small version measuring 25.79 inches wide and 32.68 inches tall and a large version measuring 39.37 inches wide and 49.6 inches tall. Each lamp consists of two layers of cocoon, the first thicker, the second much thinner, applied through a spray gun while the frame twirls on a spinning base. A final transparent paint is then applied to add a sheen. The resulting skin is very similar to a real cocoon made by a silkworm, hence the naming of the technique, the company says.
“Overlap plays with the idea of the space that exists between two perpendicular planes, leaving the imagination to complete the geometry,” Flos says. “Anastassiades uses the cocoon wrapping to create visual interest so that the interlocking rings appear as if they are trying to push through the membrane.”
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