Market

edited by Alexa Yablonski -- Interior Design, 9/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Baker Furniture: The Delamere chaise and ottoman successfully wed sensuous styling with a touch of tough love, which comes in the form of a single bronze bullet piercing each piece. These items are part of Bill Sofield's premiere collection for Baker. Baker Furniture, 1661 Monroe NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49505. www.bakerfurniture.com.

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Bright Chair: Elegantly tapered lines, handsome stitching, and an elongated silhouette distinguish the Super Stretch Charlie lounger designed by Douglas Levine. It measures a very commodious 77 in. in width. A more diminutive 53 in. version is also available. Bright Furniture, 51 Railroad Avenue, Middletown, NY 10940. www.brightchair.com.

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City Studio: Tony Fernandez tweaked dainty Deco lines to create the more substantially stylish Paris Salon Chair, seen here in rift oak finish. City Studio, 8444 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90069. www.citystudiola.com.

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Raffiné Limited: Suzanne Lovell's Audrey slipper chair is named after the supremely stylish Miss Hepburn. Like its namesake, the chair revels in haute couture touches, including luxurious materials (here, a burled walnut frame) and divine details, like welting and a chamfered back. Raffiné Limited, 225 West Ohio Street, Chicago, IL 60610. www.raffineltd.net.

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Donghia: The Borsalino is a voluptuous sofa if there ever was one. Its grand curves and inviting, high barrel back seduced us at first glance. Available in maple or oak in a variety of finishes. Donghia, 485 Broadway, New York, NY 10013. www.donghia.com.

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Arcadia: Designer David Dahl's Huddle seating collection reveals his interest in mixed materials, multifunctional use, and classic lines. The furnishings, which include lounge chair, loveseat, and sofa, can be equipped with casters and/or tablet arms for office use. Arcadia, 5692 Fresca Drive, La Palma, CA 90623.

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Allermuir: Dutch designer Ton Haas created the Mellow collection, which is filled with fun forms. The pieces are constructed from round or square upholstered shapes mounted on steel-tube frames. Matching high stools are also available. Allermuir, Branch Road, Lower Darwen, Lancashire, BB3 OPR, England. www.allermuir.com.

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B&B Italia: We fancy Antonio Citterio's metallic-mesh Iuta chair in this creamsicle coloration, but more sober seat cushions in both leather and fabric are available—as are metallic shiny or matte finishes. B&B Italia, 150 East 58th Street, New York, NY 10155. www.bebitalia.it.

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Davis Furniture Industries: Lucid, the award-winning chair from NeoCon 2000, gets a new look this season with an upholstered jacket back that slides on and snuggly fits without zippers or attachments. Davis, 2401 South College Drive, Highpoint, NC 27261. www.davis-furniture.com.

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izzydesign: "Everyone misuses chairs," says designer Jeffrey Gershune. "You switch positions every two to three minutes, you slouch—you even sit backwards." Ready for the abuse is the ultra-durable and pliable Hannah stacking chair, which Gershune designed with Dennis Foley. Made of perforated glass-filled polypropylene, it gives great ergonomic flex—which makes sitting still truly optional. Available in nine colors. izzydesign, 80 Ottawa NW, Suite 300, Grand Rapids, MI 49503. www.izzydesign.com.

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Kartell: In 1999, Philippe Starck magically designed a chair that almost wasn't: a completely clear—sublimely unobtrusive—creation called La Marie. It's now available in notice-me hues, including pink, orange, yellow, and violet. Kartell, 45 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013. www.kartell.com.

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Kings of Cardboard

Frank Gehry made corrugated-cardboard furniture cool back in the 1970s. With the Papel series of seating, tables, and windbreaks, designers Fernando and Humberto Campana appear ready to take the material into the new millennium. The Campana brothers have been creating furniture in São Paulo, Brazil, since 1983, but it wasn't until the late '90s that the design team won over the U.S. market with their whimsical, inflatable tables and rope-bound chairs. Their latest collection for Edra—which illustrates the Campana's interest in utilizing routinely cast-off materials—will, no doubt, continue the fascination. We covet this cardboard sofa with iron frame, which definitively proves that design is more than just the sum of its parts. Available in the U.S. through Dilmos, 3930 NE 2nd Avenue, Suite 105, Miami, FL 33137. www.dilmos.com.

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Chic Seats

Looking to lounge? These soigné designs pave the way to the languorous life.

Best and Brightest

Kaleidoscopic seating options that lighten up the workplace.

Hutton Hits His Stride

For some designers, being prolific can mean sacrificing quality. Not so for John Hutton. Two years after leaving Donghia—where Hutton had been the sole furniture designer for 20 years—he's on a roll, creating collections for a host of manufacturers. Among the standouts are his introductions for HBF and Sutherland.

Steve Gane, president of HBF, had long-wooed Hutton before successfully tapping him to "bring HBF closer to a more casual aesthetic, one that's married to industrial design." Hutton's premiere collection for the company boasts nearly 70 pieces in six different lines: Hemisphere, Latitude, Dateline, World, Globe, and the Chart Table series. As these names suggest, long-distance journeys influenced Hutton's vision. "My travels benefited my eye and are expressed in these new pieces, as a kind of international concept," Hutton says. "You'd think John would be all fashion and aesthetics," divulges Gane, "but he's a geek, in the best sense of the word, about anthropometrics and ergonomics." Illustrating Hutton's twin interests of style and comfort are the Hemisphere and Dateline lounge chairs: they invite lazing about, but don't rely on a clunky, overstuffed silhouette. HBF, 900 12th Street, NW, Hickory, NC 28601. www.hbf.com.

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Over the past 10 years, Hutton and Sutherland have successfully raised the level of sophistication for outdoor furnishings. Hutton recently expanded the Teak Billow collection with a number of pieces, including this teak lounge chair. The furnishings have generous proportions, but maintain grace—just like the sails of the schooners which inspired them. Sutherland, 635 Regal Row, Dallas, TX 75247. www.sutherlandteak.com.

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It Takes Two

In 1995, Designtex creative director and executive vice president Susan Lyons founded 1+1—a subsidiary textile company—as an "engine for collaboration." Since its inception, 1+1 has turned out nine collections, which were developed in association with several impressive partners, including Clodagh and the Pratt Institute. "We wanted to work with people who weren't exclusively engaged in textiles every day, but who could definitely bring something to the conversation." The latest to lend a voice is Madrid-born painter, Arturo Guerrero. As soon as Lyons made a studio visit, she was confident that Guerrero's artistic vocabulary would translate successfully to textiles. And after a bit of convincing, he agreed to try out the new medium. "Besides Arturo's sense of color—which is saturated, rich, and flamboyant—we wanted to capture his bold composition and very much the quality of his mark. It's remarkably graphic, but painterly at the same time." The collection was two years in the making with a lot of fine-tuning and input from the artist about color, scale and construction. Available in five patterns and a handful of colorways, the resulting fabrics clearly evoke Guerrero's paintings—which reveal influences ranging from Egyptian hieroglyphics to Japanese classical architecture. 1+1, 200 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014. www.dtex.com.

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