Designed for divorce? This new post-pandemic furniture range breaks up if you do!

The 'Friendly Break-Up Collection' is a new range that is adapting to today’s post-pandemic divorce boom - and also the increasing numbers of cohabitors due to housing shortages. We’ve seen numerous headlines (for example in the NYT) showing spikes in divorce rates since the start of the pandemic, including a whopping 35% increase in Argentina in 2020 (La Nación). 

FC Home & Deco and Wunderman Thompson Lima present a design innovation that adapts to increasing rates of divorce and flat-sharing among young people. This new modular range of furniture divides in two, encouraging friendlier splitting of belongings between partners, roommates, and friends.
 

“The Friendly Break Up Collection includes furniture conceived as a unit but that can be divided into two, maintaining the initial aesthetics and utility, thus, facilitating the division of material goods,” comments Federico Fontenla, president of Fontenla group, behind FC Home & Deco. Fontenla is known for their avant-garde and prestigious designers, and for decorating and restoring important buildings in Argentina. “This is a collection that allows you to start over and move with a part of the original piece of furniture, but at the same time looks complete and can still be enjoyed. A simple but innovative idea that meant a lot of time, dedication, and a great challenge from design and functionality point of view,”  

The furniture in the collection is named after celebrity breakups, including the BradIston Sofa, GarnAfleck rug, DemiLlis coffee table, CruisMan bookcase, KanyDashian table, and the LuisCarey painting, to name a few. 

Every item is the product of ingenious modular design that means it can be used either as one large or as two smaller units – making the range highly flexible, whether or not you are moving out. A whole room can be instantly redesigned: by splitting the BradIston couch into a pair of elegant armchairs, or dividing the KanyDashian table to instantly set up two separate workspaces. Considerable effort from an interdisciplinary team of  architects, industrial designers, decorators and interior designers was needed to ensure each piece has functionality and personality, both together and apart. For people splitting up or moving out, the hope is to give everyone an equal share, so that each can keep their favourite part: “You like the left? Good, I like the right.”

Following the launch, new items will be added to the collection following a social media campaign that will invite members of the public to suggest further names.

"It has been incredible to co-create this collection with the FC team, who have understood people very well and have been able to adapt to their different lifestyles,” adds Bruno Reggiardo, Executive Creative Director Wunderman Thompson Lima and Augusto Landauro Head of Content Wunderman Thompson Latam. “Of course, no one starts a relationship thinking about splitting up, but it does happen. That's why Friendly Breakup Collection seeks to make those separations more friendly and practical." .  

The collection is available for people in Argentina to buy on the FC Home & Deco website and in store at their flagship outlet in Buenos Aires. 

To make things even easier for those cohabiting with friends, customers can use two separate payment methods to pay for their items, so they don’t have to worry about who owes who at the end of the tenancy. All in all, it offers a flexible solution for our increasingly flexible lifestyles – and a helping hand during those painful moments in life.

Ad Agency: Wunderman Thompson