Office chair / contemporary / aluminum / commercial with armrests, star base Life: Back: glass filled nylon frame, polyester yarn with co-polyester elastometric back suspension fabric. Upholstery topper: MDI polyurethane foam. Seat: glass filled nylon insert. Arm rests: aluminium/glass filled nylon post with thermoplastic urethane pad. Base: Glass filled nylon or die cast aluminium. Life: base: polished aluminium, grey. Seat & back, grey, silver, polished aluminium detail. 7 Life back suspension fabrics. 3 approved fabric, 5 approved leather groups. With intuitive adjustments, a slim silhouette and broad colour and finish palette, Life sets the standard for ergonomics and innovative design. The advanced control automatically adjusts to the weight of the body, providing personalised and effortless ergonomic support. Rated as a high quality sustainable product, Life exemplifies our steadfast commitment to the environment. The Life chair complements, rather than dominates.
Translucent back fabric and thin profile enable the chair to integrate with any environment. Numerous finish and upholstery options to suit individual environment or personality; available with back fabric in a range colours, grey or aluminium base. Controls: automated when possible; easy, obvious and labelled. Synchronised recline with auto-balanced tension.screen shot, Fast Company and RenestFive years ago, when I was particularly upset about comments regarding the cost of a British product, I quoted Oscar Wilde's complaint, suggesting that the commenters knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Reading the comments on Suzanne LaBarre's Fast Company post about Vitra's production of the classic Eames Lounge, on our reposting of it, and Cambria Bold's post Re-Nest On... Expensive Green Furniture and Angry People, I think it is time to revisit the issue. There are in fact two questions to address:1) Why is the Eames Lounge so expensive?2) Is this expensive furniture we all show really green?
The discussion started with an appalling comment on Re-nest, the most civil part being "Get off my planet and take your high-priced stupid furniture with you. Mother Earth has no need of you or your crap."That is not in fact true, Herman Miller has been making the thing since it was designed, working with Charles and Ray Eames.In fact, not everything that the Eames's designed was "good design for the masses" and built with economics in mind; this chair was always expensive. In the 1957 catalogue it lists for $ 540; using an inflation calculator, that currently represents $ 4,308, just a little cheaper than the $ 4,499 that the chair lists for at Herman Miller in walnut veneer.As for the $ 9,000 price quoted in Fast Company, one cannot convert a European price in Euros to dollars and complain when the dollar is in the toilet; in five years it has dropped significantly.Then there is Purchasing Power Parity; things cost more in Europe. The Economist's Big Mac index suggests that the Euro is 20% over valued.
Combine the two and that $ 9,000 chair is really only about $ 6500, more than the American price but not that far out of line.But that still is a lot of money.Yes, and as one commenter said, " There are some very good copies out there at a fraction of the cost." But they do not pay royalties to the Eames Foundation, nor do they stick to the standards set by the designers' estate. They knock it off.What goes into an original Eames Chair. Image credit Herman MillerNor do they care about using sustainably harvested woods and maximizing recycled content. The fact of the matter is, it costs a lot of money to make this thing well. If you look at my slideshow or the Vitra video at Fast Company, you see talented craftspeople working carefully. So many of the designs that we show are made by craftspeople using sustainably sourced materials, made in short production runs. They are going to be expensive, but that doesn't mean you can't call it green.Back at ReNest, Cambria Bold summarized many of the attributes that we all admire in this stuff:We continue to believe that great, green design should:
be beautiful, durable, and innovative. be able to improve your life and the planet without sacrificing style and comfort. encourage thoughtful, careful purchasing. celebrate both thrift AND aspiration. That last point is really key: the designers and companies that are shaping our future are worth knowing about, even if their products are currently out of our price range. Our hope is that one day, they won't be--hopefully one day, their ideas, design philosophies, and production and manufacturing processes will have become standard practice, and thus more accessible.Furniture used to be aspirational; one used your grandma's sofa until you could afford your own. Now it is cheaper to buy one at IKEA than it is to hire a mover to bring you your grandma's sofa. Also, in a lot of ways, IKEA has hurt the market for aspirational furniture because their stuff looks so good; cheap furniture used to inevitably be ugly furniture and with IKEA, it isn't. They have changed the entire marketplace.
I believe that the marketplace is going to change again. I have been looking for a decent dining room chair for over twenty years, and have never found one I like to go with my mid-century modern former boardroom table.Two years ago at ICFF I finally found a chair that I thought would work, designed by D E Sellers in Brooklyn. It is a downloadable design, that can be sent electronically and cut out with a CNC Router or shopbot anywhere in the world. Instead of a flatpack design from an unknown Swede cut out in China and purchased in a suburban big box store, I am going to talk directly to the designer, cut it out in downtown Toronto, take it home by subway and streetcar (unless I can borrow a bike trailer) and assemble it.Just because I can't afford a classic doesn't mean I want to drown the writer who shows it on their site. I can still support a designer I admire, know the provenance of the wood my chair is made of, leave most of my money in the hands of a local craftsman cutting out the pieces, and still have something different and special.