Lúčetône of Latex

A new Slovak brand that presented their works at the latest Prague’s Designblok festival has thanks to the diacritical marks a tad hard-to-pronounce name: Lúčetône (pronounced as “Lootche-twoug-nye”). But it works quite well even without diacritic; only it resembles the Italian Luceplan producer a little. The founders of the brand are Lenka Mlynarčíková, Ivana Zuskinová and Matúš Opálka. What caught our attention was their intriguing use of latex. This specific material either of natural or synthetic resin is more associated with fetish fashion, sterility of sanitary aids or water-proof painting solutions. Its use in other forms of design is rather an exception. The Lúčetône designers are no newbies in latex, though. They started working with it in small formats four years ago, using it for fashion accessories (Angel&Devil brand) and testing its features. Getting together with Matúš Opálka (a designer who won the Red Dot Design Award for his INDI luminaires for the Czech-based HALLA company in 2014) meant a significant shift from bags towards bigger formats. The demanding part was how to turn latex into the actual fabric to work with. Then they applied it experimentally to constructions and arrived at making interior division walls or a mobile construction of a circular wall light. As for design, they bet on abstract atmospheric compositions. The result is quite a thing. And most importantly, it shows the new potential of this material that, on top of it, is recyclable.