Wing Chairs, Old And New

Once upon a time, when I was a callow lad, the house I wanted had a library just like the duplex model Henry Higgins had in the film version of “My Fair Lady.” There would be tiers of books, a sliding ladder, and tufted leather wing chairs by the fireside (wing chairs having been invented to keep drafts off sensitive sitters’ heads and shoulders). Even now, when I visit my mother, I head immediately to one of the two wing chairs she has in her living room. They are not tufted or leather, but they are comfortable. Stylistically… well, let us say kindly, they are “inspired by chairs of an earlier era.”

Above: a Regency-inspired leather wing chair from ForestSofa.co.uk

Happily for those of us who went on to become enamored of modern furniture, the wing chair has proven itself to be endlessly adaptable and endlessly fascinating to the best furniture designers of virtually every design era. One of the most enduring of the midcentury wingers, of course, is the Egg chair, designed by Arne Jacobsen in 1958 for the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen. Sixty years later, it’s everywhere, from boutique hotels to TV commercials (DWR.com).

And then, of course, there is the iconic Eames lounge chair of 1956, that marvel of leather and bent wood that is nearly (and deservedly) ubiquitous in the world of modern design (HermanMiller.com).

The Eames chair is so popular, in fact, that it inspired a brand new Scandinavian take on the original called the Zero Gravity wing chair, which is engineered to the sophistication of a space station—it’s actually been tested by NASA—and lists for about $14,500. Sitting in it is about as close to weightlessness as you can get on earth.(DeeplyMadlyLiving.com has it on sale for $8,400).

Meanwhile, contemporary designers are still working their reinventive magic on wing chairs. Tom Dixon exaggerated the height and curves of the classic for this velvet beauty (TomDixonbyGeorgeSmith.com).

And one of my favorites is the curvaceous house blend by Vicente Wolf. His Cuddle wing chair hones pretty close to the traditional in its curvy upholstery and then adds cabriole legs in metal for a dose of modernity as subtle as the taste of a lemon peel in the perfect dry martini (VicenteWolf.com). 

If you want to bring your tufted leather wing chair all the way forward in time, consider commissioning a piece like this from Jimmie Martin, whose London showroom is open by appointment only. Each piece is one-of-a-kind. This one combines an ornate frame with its roots the pre-revolutionary past. Not one to understate the ironic, this madly talented house of dark mirth gilded the frame in silver and upholstered the seat and back in brown leather, uniquely covered in hand-wrought graffiti (JimmieMartin.co.uk).

It’s the last word! Really. Well, at least for now .

Michael Lassell,
Features Director, Metropolitan Home