Founded in 1980 by Ettore Sottsass alongside an international group of designers and architects, Memphis rejected the restraint and conventions of its time. Laminate patterns, primary colour, exaggerated geometry and furniture that often behaved more like sculpture than seating became the signatures of a movement that divided critics when it debuted in 1981.

Forty-five years later, its influence continues to surface across contemporary design, fashion and visual culture.Its graphic language proved just as bold as its furniture, from Sottsass's ‘Bacterio’ print to Nathalie Du Pasquier's patterns, which carried the Memphis vocabulary into textiles, print and fashion.