Lagerfeld’s Ring Bed, Masanori Umeda’s Tawaraya

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Once a brilliant design idea from Memphis, now a pop-museum-worthy piece, the Tawaraya boxing ring bed is currently exhibited in Paris (in Azzedine Alaia’s gallery, to be more specific).

The Tawaraya boxing ring bed was the work of the Memphis group (a Milan-based handful of extraordinary creative minds in furniture and product design) – that you can actually see in a photo from 1981, in the original ring bed (right after the jump!). A monochrome striped base with multicolored “ropes” and light bulbs at each of the four corners of the ring, the bed was the handy work of Masanori Umeda, a Japanese architect collaborating with Memphis at the time. It was an absolute declaration of love for the color, the use of color in design/architecture.

Memphis Boxing ring bed

Karl Lagerfeld himself appreciated the feelings and the ideas of the Memphis group so he furnished his Monte Carlo apartment with them. The Tawaraya boxing ring bed caught his mind (you can’t really say that it caught his heart, who knows what makes the Kaiser tick?) so he took it. Do you think he ever slept in it? (not that the Kaiser ever sleeps, but even so…) (via 1, 2)

Memphis designers Tawaraya bed

5 comments

#1 Ellington on 11.12.09 at 10:49 am

I think that is where “Wee Kaiser” the bear sleeps. The Kaiser sleeps standing up so as not to wrinkle.
;)

#2 Adriana on 11.12.09 at 12:09 pm

I’ve inappropriate thoughts……so I leave it to this…..:”>

#3 kpriss on 11.13.09 at 7:58 am

lol! he sleeps standing up! hahaha!

Adriana, do share! :) everything is permitted in the name of art! ;) (and if not, it’ll only be “under moderation”. Permanently! ;) )

#4 Adriana on 11.14.09 at 8:42 am

Kpriss, no, I don’t want to be “under moderation permanently”! Use your imagination. :))

#5 Zanone on 02.02.10 at 7:30 am

Makes for strange “bedfellows” for sure.

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