Driade Furniture

Driade is modern Italian design personified. It is bold yet elegant, contemporary yet traditional, and conservative but openminded when it comes to drawing inspiration from other styles and cultures. Whether you’re looking to equip your patio with high-end outdoor furniture or redecorate your outdoor living room with a unique chair that’s more a piece of art than it is furniture, Driade is a brand you shouldn’t pass on.

When shopping for luxury outdoor furniture, you want it to be more than just a piece of wood, metal, and fabric glued together without any soul. The philosophy behind Driade furniture is that every product is a unique expression of the designer’s imagination. It’s like a part of them is stitched into the very fabric you sit on. When shopping for Driade furniture, you’re not merely seeking to fill a space, you’re in pursuit of an item you can relate to on a personal level and truly live with for years to come. Comfort, function, and longevity are the added bonuses.

Following this joie de vivre, Driade has created an eclectic portfolio made to astonish. You’ll find that Driade chairs are exceptionally brilliant when it comes to applying different color combinations and materials. Fabio Novembre’s remarkable Nemo Chair, in particular – which was featured on the promotional poster for the popular Netflix series Lupin – is an icon in the making; designed as a face with classic feature, it’s part chair/part mask. To fully grasp its genius, one must experience it in person. Stop by the CLIMA Home showroom anytime; our staff will be more than happy to show it to you.

History

Driade was born in 1968 – a joint venture between the late Enrico Astori, the company’s art director; his sister, Antonia Astori, designer and author of the company’s architectural image; and his wife, Adelaide Acerbi, who was in charge of the brand’s communications.

Since its onset, Driade has asserted itself for the quality of its creative offerings and an industrial policy heavily geared toward innovation. The launch of Driade coincided with the presentation of a system of containers called “Driade 1,” which laid the basis for an interpretation of the typical “container” as an active tool in designing spaces. With this silent revolution, Antonia Astori brought design back into architecture.

In its early years, Driade was strictly bound to Italian design, embracing the work of masters such as Giotto Stoppino, Rodolfo Bonetto, Enzo Mari, Nanda Vigo, Massimo and Lella Vignelli, and De Pas – D’Urbino – Lomazzi. In the 1980s, Driade extended its collaborations with esteemed designers such as Borek Sipek, Toyo Ito, and Oscar Tusquets, and Lluís Clotet, among many others. Over the next two decades, Driade continued to launch revolutionary furniture products, many of which are still in production today.

In 2013, Driade was acquired by ItalianCreationGroup, an Italian holding company specializing in the home design and luxury lifestyle sectors. In 2019, Fabio Novembre, the prestigious mind behind the inspired Nemo Chair, became Driade’s new art director. His versatility, experimentation, flair, and charisma have positioned Driade as a rebellious spirit on the global design scene, a reputation it maintains to this day.

Materials

The variety of materials Driade uses ranges from high-grade wood to high-tech plastic and metal. Driade is also committed to developing a path to support sustainability, investing in increasingly innovative production systems that guarantee the lowest environmental impact while maintaining excellence and focusing on health and comfort. In 2021, the brand launched “Black is the New Green,” a capsule collection composed of Driade’s most iconic chairs made of 100-percent recycled plastic. The forward-thinking collection demonstrates that sustainability and sustainable development are not antithetical processes.

Designers

Over the last 50-plus years, Driade has worked with some of the biggest names in design and architecture. In addition to some of the aforementioned, collaborators for Driade’s outdoor furniture collections include:

• Philippe Starck (Toy, Bo, Lord Yo, Lord Yi, and Soft Egg), who partnered with Eugeni Quitllet on the Pip-e and Out/In collections
• Italian designers and architects Ludovica and Roberto Palomba (Sissi, Pliè, App, Sunrise, and Piaffè)
• British designer Faye Toogood (Roly Poly)
• German designer Konstantin Grcic (Mingx, winner of the 2017 Wallpaper Design Award)
• Israeli industrial designer and artist Ron Arad (Clover and MT1, MT2, and MT3, which received the prestigious Compasso d’Oro in 2008)
• Japanese designer and artist Tokujin Yoshioka (Tokyo-Pop)
• Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard of design studio Fredrikson Stallard (Camouflage)
• Milan-born architect and designer Miki Astori (Kissino)

“There is no point to work without experimentation!”