Lighting up l.a. Flos.

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Few streets in Los Angeles are lined with boutiques as tony as those on Robertson Boulevard. While the street is still associated as a fashion destination littered with paparazzos aiming for starlets in stride with their Grande Macchiatos, the fabled street just got one shop closer to being known as a genuine design destination with today’s opening of Flos by The Diva Group.

The Italian lighting company originally founded in 1962, well known for their partnerships with distinguished designers such as Philippe Starck, Jasper Morrison, Marcel Wanders and Marc Newson, will also be opening a boutique in San Francisco this week to serve as their two west coast outposts in the United States. In addition, Flos has a store in New York City, as well as several other stores in Europe and Asia and work with retailers all over the world.

d’e light | philippe starck

When walking through the newly minted Los Angeles boutique, one is filled with pure wonderment. Flos’ newest designs, like the 2012 D’E-Light by Philippe Starck, a task light which includes a continuous LED and an iPod dock on its top, grabs attention as much as a futuristic gadget as it does for its beautiful form. In addition to the newest technological advancements in lighting, Flos is dedicated to their stable of classics like the iconic Arco floor lamp designed by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1962 as well as more obscure designs, like the kite-like Ariette wall lamp designed by Tobia Scarpa in 1973. Without a thorough knowledge in design history, it is quite difficult to correctly identify the design year or even decade of many of the Flos inventory; their entire fleet exudes freshness, modernity and relevance.

arco light | achille and pier giacomo castiglioni

ariette light | tobia scarpa

ron gilad | wall piercing

designer ron gilad

The show-stopper at the Los Angeles store, however, is surely Ron Gilad’s ambient installation on the back wall of the store entitled Wall Piercing, which intertwines panels and panels of tube lighting into one seamless backdrop. The piece can come in several configurations and includes the ability for several colors to rotate and several options for degrees of light intensities. Gilad was in from Brooklyn to speak about his inspiration, “I wanted to work with the minimum container that could encapsulate the LED and then interpret it through my language, which is lines.” Recently this piece, originally designed in 2010, was accepted into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as The Art Institute of Chicago.