IC UNIQUE

Few designs have had more impact on lighting in recent years than IC, a collection of light fixtures designed by London-based designer Michael Anastassiades. Ideated in the early 2010s and commercially released by Flos in 2014, the IC light is an evolution of Anastassiades’s ongoing fascination with spherical shapes, which he has explored since launching his eponymous London-based design studio in 1994. “My obsession with the sphere as a shape comes from seeing it as the ultimate primal form,” Anastassiades once said. “There are a lot of round things around us: the planets, the sun… and that familiarity feels very comfortable to me.”

That comfort was appreciated by many; almost immediately upon its release, the IC flew off the proverbial shelf. At just under 700 dollars, it’s a fraction of the price of most designs Anastassiades releases under his own brand, Michael Anastassiades, or through collectible design galleries such as Nilufar in Milan or The Future Perfect in New York. “I think IC is an example of how relatively affordable design can remind us of the magic of bringing reconstituted art into our homes as an accessible object,” explains Flos’s creative director Barbara Corti, who values Anastassiades not only for his designs but also for his intellectual integrity and generosity. “What makes working with Michael special is his very pure, simple lifestyle — free from conventions. Michael wants to remain free, and he chooses his projects carefully,” says Corti.

“To me, IC has now become an icon because it embraces the present and grasps and perceives time, but it seems to have always been here. It has an almost primordial quality to it,” states Corti, who points out that there are now six different versions of IC in the Flos collection. The person most surprised by the IC’s success is Anastassiades himself. “When we released IC, I had already been working with the shape materiality — the sphere and brass — for a decade, so it was a natural evolution of my work, but for Flos, it was a new language,” he says. “I never expected it to become as successful as it has.”

On the occasion of the IC’s tenth anniversary, Anastassiades and Flos not only launched a limited edition IC in 24k gold but also called upon ten different creatives to reinterpret this modern classic. Artists and photographers, including Yago Castromil, David Luraschi, Nicolas Kern, Olya Oleinic, Eduard Sánchez Ribot, and Luis Úrculo; illustrators like Oscar Grønner, Sany, or Jay Daniel Wright; and poet Aurielle Marie created their interpretation of IC. “Over the years, I’ve seen the IC in so many contexts and settings, whether in a magazine photo shoot, on TV, in movies, an illustration on the cover of Zeit Magazin… So when we thought about celebrating the popularity of the IC, we felt it was important to show it in the many different aspects of culture, through many different lenses,” remarks Anastassiades. To Corti, the selection of artists “represents the many possible worlds in which to celebrate IC’s unique quality.”

PIN–UP is premièring these IC images as a digital exclusive, proving that original design is at its best when it hits that balance between being timeless and completely of its time.

View the limited edition IC in 24K gold here.