Eames Lounge Chair from Vitra

The Eames Lounge Chair

The Eames Lounge Chair has become one of the most important classics of furniture design in the 20th century

The Design

A furniture classic furniture, and a central component of the Vitra Eames Collection, is the luxurious Eames Lounge Chair. Realised in 1956, the Eames Lounge Chair offers optimum comfort and dispenses with the chunkiness of its predecessors in the field of English club chairs. Instead, the Lounge Chair is made of lightweight molded plywood elements, metal clamps and voluminous leather upholstery contrast on the rotatable five-star base with lightness, elegance and a modernity that has not lost its topicality even today.

The Production

Finishing of the Lounge Chairs at the Vitra Atelier

10 things you probably didn't (yet) know about the Eames Lounge Chair

The Eames Lounge Chair turned 60 year in 2016, but remains true to its original purpose of making the classic lounge chair lighter and more contemporary. But then you knew that. Here as 10 things that you probably didn't know about the true classic among the lounge chairs...

1. The first calligraphic impression of the Eames Lounge Chair comes from the artist Corita Kent, a friend of Charles and Ray Eames. It shows the Lounge Chair and later design classics disassembled into its individual parts.

2. Since its creation in 1956, the original design of the Eames Lounge Chair has not changed. Therefore owners of older models can still order replacement parts - should they be required.

3. The Eames Lounge Chair is part of the permanent collection of over 20 outstanding museums in the United States and Europe.

4. The Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman was the first and only chair that presenter Arlene Francis explicitly presented to her national audience in the 1950s U. S. series Home Show. This was unique for the time and made the popular chair even more popular.

5. The Eames originally designed the characteristic five-star base of their Lounge Chair & Ottoman as a base for a side table.

6. Director and screenwriter Billy Wilder, a good friend of Charles & Ray Eames, received the second Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman produced. This was thanks for a modernist chair that the couple had received from Wilder years before and greatly appreciated. Jokingly Charles is said to have wished he had designed the chair himself.

7. The upholstery for the Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman are absolutely symmetrical and can also be flexibly exchanged with each other, as they are all exactly the same size.

8. In 1961 an article was published in the magazine Playboy, which introduced several contemporary designers. In the case of the Eames Lounge Chair, the author spoke of a chair that allowed the sitter to sink into such voluptuous luxury as only a very few mortals were allowed to enjoy in ancient Rome since Nero's time.

9. Charles Eames invited film producer Julian Blaustein to come to his studio and read scripts in peace while sitting in a trial version of the Eames Lounge Chair & Ottoman. When Charles returned, his friend had fallen asleep. Blaustein may have been embarrassed, but Charles found this to be a confirmation of his design.

10. Although the Eames Lounge Chair, as we know it today, did not come into being until 1956, Charles Eames and his friend Eero Saarinen submitted a prototype of the chair to the Museum of Modern Art in New York'S 1940 Future Ideas contest

Eames Lounge Chair – the original comes from Vitra

There are numerous reasons why an original Eames Lounge Chair and the associated Eames Lounge Chair Ottoman can only come from Vitra. Since 1957 Vitra has been the only authorized manufacturer of Eames furniture in Europe: anyone else claiming to sell Eames Lounge Chairs is plagiarising. However, the legal level is only one aspect: the Vitra Lounge Chair has a long history behind it that is inextricably linked with the Swiss manufacturer. Since the 1950s, the founding couple Willi and Erika Fehlbaum had a professional and friendly relationship with Charles and Ray Eames, a relationship which has left a lasting mark on Vitra's company history. Vitra was therefore able to coordinate all decisions and questions that arose from the manufacture of the Lounge Chair directly with the designer couple and later with their heirs. The complex design was implemented in detail according to the specifications of Ray and Charles Eames. Little has changed in this for over 50 years. The Vitra Lounge Chair is still produced in 47 steps, and largely by hand. As unmistakable as they may appear at first glance, copies of the Lounge Chair are always poor in terms of materials, workmanship and attention to detail. Only an original Eames Lounge Chair from Vitra is made of plywood with a panel thickness of 8 mm from controlled cultivation and has the exact proportions of the original design. The original has cushions made of soft aniline leather filled with foam and fleece, which are removable so that they can be replaced. Air holes ensure that air can flow out when you sit down. Made from selected materials and produced in Europe, only an original Vitra Lounge Chair can survive generations and embody the ideal legacy of Ray and Charles Eames. The Eames Lounge Chair is part of the extended Vitra warranty for selected Vitra design classics.