Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Chairs with character always add a bit of design zest to a space. Searching for a new chair? Think about who you would want to invite to your next dinner party.
When I was young, 8 maybe 9 years old, I remember pulling out of our driveway heading to our annual beach vacation on Oak Island, NC and feeling a tug on my heart saying goodbye to our house. I wasn’t homesick. Our annual beach vacation was something I looked forward to all year. Rather I felt sad for our house because it was going to be lonely and empty for a whole week without “its people, its family.” I imagined it alone and dark at night and as the sun rose and the house creaked, stretching its bones as the weather turned warm after the cool night, it would awake to silence. No coffee maker humming, no feet running down the stairs, no one to curl up on the sofa to read the newspaper or watch the morning news. I think the seed was planted for my love of interiors when I began anthropomorphizing my childhood home and furniture.
Although giving a pulse to a home may be a childish game, I think our homes have a certain vitality to them. A house is just a house until you make it a home. It goes through a transformation once you move in, hang your beloved pieces of art, place the antiques you inherited or found at a flea market, upholster a chair in a favorite textile you found while traveling; all these “things” hold a story. If the walls could talk or rather if the furnishings in your home could talk, what would they say?
Many of you commented on my desk chair in my first post. Designed in 1965 by George Mulhauser for Plycraft, the chair is called the Sultana and can be found on sites like 1st Dibs or decorative art auction sites. You often find them dressed in variations of paint and fabric combinations. When I first spotted Sultana in an interiors magazine, I fell head over heels for her elegant curved arms and back while at the same time she didn’t come across as fussy. I don’t do fussy. She had a nice balance of being stylish and stalwart. If Sultana could speak, I know how she would sound. She would be a fast-talking dame with a witty repartee and a Mid-Atlantic accent, a disposition much like Katharine Hepburn.
I have a slight obsession with chairs with character; the chairs that look like their legs could begin to walk and mingle at a cocktail party or transform into the dinner party guest that brings zest to the conversations. A captivating dinner party needs a variety of personalities, similar to designing a room. You need a sprinkling of characters that bring life and interest to the room or rather to the “design conversation” and I find that chairs are an easy way to accomplish this mission.
You know it’s been a successful dinner party when your guests are all laughing in tandem or heading home recounting the tales that had been told, which is why you always need that guest who is a brilliant raconteur. The one who has lived a colorful life and is eager to share their stories. An antique chair easily fills this seat.
One of my favorite types of antique chair to add to a room is one made of rattan. A beautiful antique rattan chair brings a casual sophistication to a space, adding just enough flair but isn’t overpowering. I sourced a pair of said chairs for a project in Nashville, TN and found them here in Paris at Galerie Vauclair. The owner, Laurence Vauclair, is an expert on rattan and finds the most beautiful sets of tables and chairs, lounge chairs, etc that often come from a storied past. Fun fact - the chairs I purchased for my clients in Nashville came from the movie set of Coco avant Chanel, starring Audrey Tautou. Laurence also had in the window at her galerie on Rue de Beaune a fabulous set of rattan chairs and a cocktail table that had come from the estate of Madeleine Castaing, a doyenne of french interior design. What stories these chairs could tell!
Sometimes a room needs that one chair that is wise in their years, old faithful so to speak. A chair that provides security, warmth and shows their age spots in their magnificent patina that cannot be recreated but can only be earned through decades of being well-loved. This chair-friend would be the dinner guest that you can always count on to make anyone sitting beside them feel comfortable, even the most introverted wallflower. I’m currently looking for this exact type of chair for my own apartment, and I have my eyes set on finding a french leather club chair specifically from the 1930s. I love the design of these chairs during this era as they retain their sumptuous physique but with tailored lines unlike the more bulbous art deco designs. I recently found one while scouring my favorite vintage resale site, Selency, but I wasn’t quick enough and it slipped away!
A house that feels alive and bestows a cast of characters is in my opinion a well-appointed home. It’s a home whose dinner party invite you are always excited to accept. The next time you are looking for a new chair, think about whose seat at the table is missing and you can’t go wrong.