Seen on Screen: Soft Inside
Illustration: Leonhard Rothmoser.
Designed by Michel Ducaroy in 1973, the Togo remains incredibly popular. At 50-years-old, it’s still a best-seller for manufacturer Ligne Roset. The 2020s has seen the couch go viral on TikTok, while also cameoing in films and series including Spiderhead (2022) and White Lines (2020). Recently, the Togo has taken on a more serious role in its career as cinema guest star in the wonderfully colourful sets of Rye Lane (2023).
Directed by Raine Allen-Miller with production design by Anna Rhodes, Rye Lane is a romcom centring on two people who meet at a gallery, then spend a whirlwind day together navigating recent breakups while (spoiler) starting to fall in love with each other. Dom (David Jonsson), is a sweet-hearted accountant devastated by his girlfriend’s infidelity, while Yas (Vivian Oparah), an aspiring costume designer, summarises the end of her relationship in a sharp one liner: “He was trying to dilute my squash and I was like, ‘Not today Satan!’”
The Togo makes its first appearance around the 37-minute mark, when Yas yields to Dom’s requests to detail her relationship’s breaking point. The film cuts to a flashback played out on a theatre stage that has been set up as a bare-bones living room. Dom observes from the theatre’s balcony as present- day Yas narrates. The scene involves said sofa, some homemade hummus and a not-so-equal (and rather awkward to watch) sexual exchange that culminates in Yas’s epiphany: “If you make the hummus, you should get the head.” Time to go! Goodbye Togo!
It’s at this point that you start to wonder how reliable Yas’s narration is. If you interrogate the Togo’s presence, something feels off. A Togo is a joyful thing – hardly a prop for conflict. Furthermore, at the risk of overanalysing, the Togo’s extra-low and extra-deep form, combined with its serious softness (a result of having no internal structure, only foam), doesn’t feel like it would make this particular act particularly comfortable or practical. Just saying 🤷♀️. Perhaps the Togo is trying to tell us something...
About 15 minutes later, the Togo re-enters the frame when Dom and Yas break into her ex’s apartment to reclaim a record. Feathery artworks occupy obscene amounts of the flat’s floorspace and sculptural candles too beautiful to burn abound. The centrepiece? A very orange, very large Togo. Judging by the man’s styling, he does seem a bit of a prick. Perhaps Yas was telling the truth... but then the ex and his new girlfriend return unexpectedly and, long story short, reveal that Yas was the dumpee, not the dumper. Yas is shame-faced; Dom betrayed. All this time, the Togo was lounging like an elephant in the room, hinting at Yas’s lack of integrity – its soft insides an apt metaphor for her lack of ethical backbone.
Yas’s explanation for her behaviour? “I just didn’t want to be sad anymore, and so I lied and you called me iconic and I liked that you saw me that way.” As far as explanations go, it’s not bad – who doesn’t want to be an icon? But the moral of this romantic tale is that, if you get caught faking your iconicism, you might be left without a leg to stand on. And, while it’s fine for a sofa to be foot- and fancy-free, sometimes humans need to sit with some discomfort. Only by growing a spine can we attain Togo-level status as a true icon.
Words Lara Chapman
Illustration Leonhard Rothmoser
This article was originally published in Disegno #36. To buy the issue, or subscribe to the journal, please visit the online shop.