Moroso has incredible new products being presented during Milan Design Week. One of our favorites (sh!) is Me-Time by Garcia Cumini. We had the privilege of chatting with them on the phone to learn more.
The textile and motif of the Me-Time sofa by Garcia Cumini for Moroso certainly pulled us into their creative world, enticing us to not only want to collapse into its fluffiness but to know more about how it was conceived and fabricated. Their description of the softness and overflowing style reminiscent of a cake or soufflé is spot on. Set to allure guests as a silent but irresistible invitation to relax, we had to discover behind the scenes details on how this designer duo achieved integrating a gravitational pull to the Me-Time sofa where we simply want to sink into its sculptural softness, as was the goal.
How Loving Relationships Lead to Incredible Pieces
The story of Garcia Cumini isn’t just one of creative synergy, but of an intertwining love story that beautifully mirrors the harmony of their designs. Long before the Me-Time collection was ever conceived, designers Vicente García Jiménez and Cinzia Cumini were circling each other’s orbits, professionally and personally.
“We knew each other some years before we joined forces,” Cumini recalled. “We became a couple and then we decided to launch the studio.”
At the time, each was involved in other relationships, and so their collaboration—and their romance—was postponed. But when the stars aligned and they were both free, things fell into place naturally.
“Firstly, we fell in love. And then after four years, we decided to start work together too.”
Founded in 2012, the studio Garcia Cumini is a perfect fusion of two cultures—Italian and Spanish—intertwining their philosophies, aesthetics, and values.
“I’m Italian, Vicente is Spanish, so we are a very mixed culture,” said Cumini.
Their studio is based in northeastern Italy, where influences from nearby Austria and Slovenia add richness to their perspective.
“It opens your mind without you taking real acknowledgment of that,” García added, referring to the multicultural cross-pollination that informs their open, borderless design language.
They hope to continue shining together for many years to come.
The Story Behind the Innovative Flower Motif & Soft Fabric
At the heart of Me-Time is a marriage of innovative textile craftsmanship and nuanced design thinking. From the very beginning, fabric played a central role in communicating the visual and tactile softness the designers envisioned. Garcia Cumini and Moroso’s team explored bold options, initially considering fur before crafting a custom jacquard wool that defies expectations.
“When we first presented the idea to Patricia, we only had two or three images,” the designers recalled. “One of them wasn’t even a sofa. It was an ottoman covered in fur.”
It was, they admitted:
“a slightly crazy idea—fur on a sofa. You see fur a lot in fashion or accessories, but in upholstery, it’s pretty unusual.”
They recalled the early stages, of when Patricia remembered a photo of herself as a teenager in the ’70s, wearing a fur jacket printed with flowers. Her memory and our fur ottoman idea just clicked. That’s when it came together:
“Why don’t we put flowers on the fur?” The original plan was to print them, “but then, working on the fabric, we decided to make it more precious. So the material became a jacquard and, instead of printing the motif, it’s woven.”
The textile is wool, soft and thick, with a distinctive “combed” finish that opens the threads, creating dimensionality and texture. The final fabric is composed of five colors—white as the base, with four carefully blended shades to produce a broad palette of nuanced tones. Though limited to only six thread colors due to technical constraints, the resulting gradients of the five selected colors appear rich and infinite.
“They comb the threads to open them up, giving more volume and texture. So in certain parts of the jacquard, like where white blends with gray or red, you get these beautiful, nuanced effects. Some are full of spring tones—light blues, pinks, yellows, reds. Others are more natural, with grays and deeper reds.”
Precision Pattern Design: A Floral Arrangement Across Fabric
The standout version of Me-Time—adorned with the signature flower motif—was achieved through precision pattern design. The floral arrangement is repeated across the fabric width but with a touch of “controlled chaos.”
“It’s like when you have a bunch of flowers and you throw them. They fall in a very chaotic way,” García explained.
This approach ensures that each sofa has a unique and organic distribution of flowers, resulting in subtle variations between pieces while preserving harmony.
Structurally, the sofa is composed of various densities of fiber, designed to deliver layered softness. It’s not about rigid perfection but about engineered imperfection with shapes that appear relaxed and natural, yet are the result of careful craftsmanship.
“We wanted to freeze in time that look… that sensation,” they said.
In every sense, Me-Time embodies the spirit of slow design: sensorial, emotional, and deeply personal.
