SOLAR SOFA
By Faye Toogood, 2024

Faye Toogood gave herself a challenge with her inaugural collection for Tacchini. The task was simple, at least in theory: strike the perfect balance between sculptural form and softness. Her answer was Solar, a sofa and daybed that reduces the typology to its most essential expression — a pile of cushions, a distillation of comfort, an invitation to sink, to be enveloped, and to let go. Toogood has always worked this way, collecting experiences, emotions, and distilling them into tactile form. Her collaboration with Tacchini, the family-run company founded in 1967 by Antonio Tacchini, is no exception. Under the quiet but sharp-eyed leadership of Giusi Tacchini (Antonio’s daughter), the brand has, over the last decade, carved out a space for itself in contemporary design, balancing the revival of Italian masterworks — Mario Bellini, Gianfranco Frattini, Umberto Riva, Tobia Scarpa — with an infusion of forward-thinking collaborations — Michael Anastassiades, Formafantasma, David/Nicolas, Studiopepe, and of course Toogood. Solar is a natural fit, another marker in Tacchini’s evolving narrative. As part of the Cosmic collection, Solar is not an isolated piece but part of a constellation. There’s the daybed variation. The Astral wall cabinet. The Stellar mirror, half-buried in its own reflection. The pebble-shaped Orbit tables. A galaxy, fully formed. The Solar sofa, with its intentionally crinkled fabric and layered cushions, particularly embodies the kind of casual elegance Toogood has become known for — at once effortless and precise. It is upholstery rethought, structure undone. It does not demand so much as suggest. Toogood calls it a place to “crash land,” and perhaps that is her real achievement: a collection that does not merely exist, but absorbs, accommodates. As she prepares to unveil a new collection for Tacchini this spring, Solar reminds us that the most enduring designs are often those that do not just exist in the world but create new ones.