High Point, NC Market 2011 Day 2
Chairs created a bit of excitement on Day 2 in various showrooms. The team of interior decorators from DecorAndYouDC selected classic designs with fashion-forward details, and all are reproductions with a twist of furnishings that once were. Fashion and design has been continuously reborn for centuries, and our 3 chair picks to share demonstrate exactly this point. As a matter of fact, “What Comes Around Goes Around,” was a feature topic presented by our team and speaker Mary Gilliatt in Tysons Corner, VA at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel during the Home&Design Luxury Expo a few years ago.
Chair 1: Womb Chair (and interior decorator, Patty Lustig of Springfield, Virginia)
History: The Womb Chair is probably one of the most comfortable Saarinen chairs in history. Made in 1948 by Eero Saarinen, as a request by Florence Knoll, the chair was manufactured just for and by her! With its cradle form designed for a relaxed seating position, the Womb chair is perfect for a modern living room as an accent piece or perhaps a quiet corner where one can kick off their shoes and catnap on this little piece of heaven.
The Womb Chair is enveloping, lap-like form continues to be one of the most iconic and recognized representations of mid-century Scandinavian organic modernism. In fact, ask most designers and architects what lounge chair design they covet and they promptly tell you it the Womb Chair. By applying foam molded over a fiberglass shell, Saarinen was able to create a single-piece form that perfectly facilitated a relaxed sitting posture and a sublime feeling of security.
Chair 2: Bubble Chair or Ball Chair (and interior decorator, Katie McGovern of Clifton, Virginia)
History: Eero Aarnio created the Bubble Chair in 1967 which was born from the Ball Chair*** concept. Except this new and improved chair was reduced and suspended to lessen the bulk of the Ball. He also used clear fiberglass to let the light in from all angles for a weightless effect.
***Ball chair History: Designed in 1963, this retro modern Ball Chair also known as the Globe Chair still looks like something out of the future! Eero Aarnio created the prototype for what would be the most unconventional chair of its time which started a new line of fiberglass seating. Originally, the chair was geared towards industrial design and today these reproductions also function as home furniture all over the globe. ‘There is no nice way to make a clear pedestal’ Eero Aarnio notes. That is the lucky reason why the Bubble Chair hangs from the ceiling. Like the Ball Chair the Bubble Chair also impresses the user by the special accoustic. The Bubble Chair swallows the sounds and you feel isolated inside in a pleasant way, even when you are in a crowded place.
The biggest update to the chair this century is we can customize this chair with your own personal stereo speakers.
(Historical content of Chair 1 & Chair 2 provided by Whitney Giannelli, Vendor Relations Manager of Decor & You, Inc.)
Chair 3: Motion Chair or Recliner 
Most believe the history of the recliner starts in the early Twentieth Century, but the recliner chair dates back much further. The earliest recliner chairs actually appeared in the late Eighteenth Century, and were functionally similar to todays recliners – allowing the user to sit upright or recline back with the legs and feet off the floor.
What has been dubbed by many designers as motion furniture, the recliner has been with us in one form or another for over two hundred years. Modeled after the chaise lounge, the long history of the recliner has seen this popular piece of furniture go from simple to fully motorized. Thought to be an American invention, the recliner has its roots as far back as Napoleon.
Two American cousins, Knabush and Shoemaker, are credited with gaining the patent on a wooden recliner. There was nothing remarkable about the design as it resembled a wooden beach recliner. The difference between this and other recliners was the patent. Issued in nineteen twenty eight, the patent led to the founding of LayZBoy. It would not be until nineteen thirty one that the cousins would patent an upholstered model with a mechanical movement. It would not be until nineteen forty seven that a competing company would add a built in foot rest. The addition of a foot rest would become a standard part of recliner design (content from Mitch Endick, online writer).
Recliners have come a long way, don’t you agree?
Written by Sandra Hambley, Principal Interior Decorator of DecorAndYouDC of Herndon, Virginia.
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