Paola Lenti is celebrating 25 years of collaboration with Francesco Rota, the designer with whom the company began its journey into the furniture world with the first indoor seating pieces in 1998. Five years later, at Fuorisalone 2003, the company officially entered the outdoor world, again with Francesco Rota.
Paola Lenti today recalls these important milestones of her entrepreneurial career with the re-edition of two of her most iconic seating pieces penned by the Milanese designer: Linea, the first chaise longue for indoors, and Wave, its twin for outdoor use and part of Aqua, the collection that this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Paola Lenti and Francesco Rota met in the late 1990s through mutual friends. The company was still small at the time, but it already demonstrated a strong proclivity to experiment with materials and conduct research on yarns and fabrics to create new forms and colour combinations. Paola Lenti wished to give three dimensions to felt, the solid and dense fabric the Company still uses to make her rugs. She found the ideal intellectual kinship in Rota, as well as the ability to shape the material and a shared approach to the project that is open, inquisitive, and devoid of superstructures.
It was in Paris, during the 1998 edition of Maison & Objet, that the company presented its first seating pieces: the Atollo sofa and the Linea chaise longue, feltcovered products for indoor use that achieved unexpected success, so much so that in 2001, Linea was awarded the Honourable Mention of the Compasso d’Oro.
