It may be difficult to believe that Michel Ducaroy’s Togo Sofa is celebrating 50 years. First presented at Salon des Arts Ménagers in Paris, where it coincided with Ligne Roset’s launch, the sofa both perplexed and transfixed viewers. “The main shock was that it had no base,” recalled Antoine Roset, the great-great-grandson of Ligne Roset’s founder who serves as the brand’s marketing director. “People thought we forgot or didn’t have time to build one.” No matter: the sofa became a ‘70s design icon and continues to prove popular with the Instagram generation, even sparking memes poking fun at its ubiquity. Credit its ground-hugging frameless silhouette, formed of crumpled, slouchy folds and stuffed with polyurethane foam. Ducaroy described it as “a tube of toothpaste folded back on itself like a stovepipe.”
To celebrate the anniversary of its signature product and bestseller, Ligne Roset is offering Togo in a variety of limited-edition upholsteries this year. Among them is Atom, the speckled, pointillism-inspired bouclé fabric designed by fashion icon Raf Simons for Kvadrat. Equally compelling is La Toile du Peintre by Pierre Frey, which reinterprets painter Heather Chontos’s graphic, colorful brushstrokes that practically recasts Togo as a canvas. Not in the market for a sofa? Tune into “Sofa, Looking for Togo,” a new podcast hosted by journalist Aurélie Sfez that traces Togo’s origins and enduring popularity, from the hallowed museums of Paris to the hotel lobbies and influencer living rooms of Los Angeles.
