Elda Chair, Arco Lamp, Metallic Dress [1962-70]

Icons of their decade, this exemplar collection of designed objects reminds us of a time infatuated by its own highly stylised life portrait, one dominated by beautiful forms to traverse the spheres of furniture, art, fashion and the in-between. Colombo’s Elda Chair (named after his wife) came to typify futuristic furnishing with a fibreglass outer shell as opposed to a traditional timber frame, encasing a padded leather interior. Castiglioni’s telescopic Arco Lamp with its highly polished stainless steel finish and Carrara marble counterweight base ushered in a new wave of lighting engineered for a domestic space age, with Rabanne’s dress similar transferring this ideal to fashion, with metallic attire seemingly better suited to a Kubrick film than a cocktail party.