Mario Bellini "Le Bambole" Daybed for B&B Italia, Black Leather, 1972

Design
1972

Manufacture
1970-1979

Location
Lonigo, IT

Mario Bellini "Le Bambole" daybed for B&B Italia, shearling topper and black leather, Italy, 1972

Mario Bellini conceived "Le Bambole" for B&B Italia in 1972 as a direct challenge to the conventions of upholstered furniture design. Where most seating of the period still deferred to the frame as its structural logic, Bellini proposed something closer to an inhabited volume: a fully upholstered body with no visible armature, its form determined entirely by the tension of the cover and the softness of the fill within. The daybed expresses this premise with particular clarity. The backrest rises at a steep angle from a low, horizontal platform, tapering to a sharp apex from which a loose bolster headrest rests freely, unsecured. The silhouette reads as a single continuous gesture from floor to crown.
The construction follows the principle Bellini described as a "sack of skin": an inner foam structure sheathed in an outer cover that gathers and tensions at key seams, allowing the leather to fall and fold as a second skin. A fitted shearling topper covers the seat surface, adding a tactile counterpoint to the leather body. "Le Bambole" received the Compasso d'Oro in 1979, a recognition of the coherence between its conceptual premise and its material resolution.