Know Your Sofas: The Mah Jong Sofa

Welcome to another installation of Know Your Sofas, and here is a sofa you should definitely know!

Created in 1971 by artist and designer Hans Hopfer (1931 - 2009) for Italian home furnishings brand Roche Bobois, the original Mah Jong sofa was called simply the Lounge Sofa (or Forever Sofa). The concept was for a low-slung modular seating system that can be combined in many different ways depending on what the owner wants. This suited the new way of seating that people were discovering in the 1960s and 1970s when the concept of a stiff sofa or settee was becoming obsolete. People more and more were lounging in their homes while watching television, relaxing, gathering, playing...simply living more casually than in times past. You can see that Hopfer's drawing below shows a sort of cloud-like, pillow silhouette.

The final product took the form of three individual elements--a flat square, a back, and a corner section--that can be stacked, combined, laid out, and rotated to form a myriad of configurations. While certainly low-slung, it looks in the first photo below like the Lounge Sofa started out placed on some thicker bases to bring them up from the floor a bit more...

...but the sofa is now known as the Mah Jong Sofa, named for the resemblance of each section to Mah Jong tiles. The concept of stacking, joining, and rearranging is even stronger now. It is still available through Roche Bobois and since 1990, it has been their best-selling sofa! It can be purchased to sit either directly on the floor or to be laid out on low platforms with inset legs that give the whole structure a sense of floating off the ground. The mattress-style cushions are entirely hand-stitched in an Italian atelier.

The Mah Jong sofa can now be ordered in fabrics designed by haute couture houses! Missoni Home created versions based on their iconic flame-stitch and other signature patterns from the house.

Legendary designer Jean Paul Gaultier lends his own patterns: French white and navy maritime stripes and the intricate curlicues of world currency...

...while Kenzo Takada took inspiration from the beauty of Japanese kimono fabrics for his collection.

You can find out more about this classic sofa at the Roche Bobois Mah Jong site!

Happy designing!

Know Your Chairs: The Roly Poly by Faye Toogood

While relatively new to the world of iconic furniture, British artist Faye Toogood's arresting Roly Poly chair has earned its place in the canon of classic contemporary furniture.

Toogood says when she first introduced it in 2014 as part of her Assemblage 4 series, people said the Roly Poly chair reminded them of a baby elephant or a 1960s pop chair. It makes me flash on The Flintstones with its Neolithic chunkiness. But in fact, Toogood says it was inspired by motherhood! Her website says, "The fibreglass chairs are hand-cast in moulds by a skilled, small-scale, British manufacturer and made to order in colours raw, charcoal and cream. Further editions of the Roly-Poly chair have explored working with different solid materials and finishes, from brushed aluminium to gold leaf. Faye Toogood's Assemblage 5, entitled Earth, Moon, Water pushed the boundaries of manufacture with chairs cast in solid cob composite, patinated bronze and crystal barium glass."

This delightful piece can be seen in design-forward spaces all over the world...

The marvelous Roly Poly chair also comes in a dining chair iteration as well as a sofa...

The chair can be purchased through Toogood's lifestyle site, here.

Happy designing!

The Sculptural Furniture of Rick Owens

I follow fashion not as a "fashionista" (whatever that means) but the way some people follow art or artists, and I think fashion designers at the highest level are indeed creating conceptual art. And one of my favorite conceptual fashion designers is the incomparable Rick Owens who has been creating wearable sculpture for some time.

But aside from clothing for men and women, he also designs furniture. Starting out as more of an accident by designing pieces for his own home and stores, his furniture designs (which are created in collaboration with his French wife Michele Lamy) are naturally reflective of his clothing. Simple, monolithic shapes dominate. His seating and objects have an ancient, Neolithic sense to them--tables seem like altars, stools and seats seem like ritual objects. This sense is highlighted by rough or elemental materials like alabaster, cement, marble, cast bronze, and plywood. To add interest, he uses hair-on-hide, leather, and moose antlers...

This is his double recamier, below, made of raw plywood and leather...

...and here it is in the living room at the Hamptons home of Dominique Lévy and Dorothy Berwin.

A Rizzoli book about Rick Owens' furniture designs called, appropriately enough, RICK OWENS: FURNITURE was released earlier this year and he and Lamy signed copies at the opening of his newest store in Manhattan in May.

To see more of Owens' work, visit his site here.

Happy designing!

Vivienne Westwood Squiggle Wallpaper

There always was, is now--and I'm certain always will be--a huge link between the worlds of fashion and interiors. One of my all-time favorite fashion designers is the amazing, incomparable Dame Vivienne Westwood. If you don't know her work, I suggest you take a Google trip and ogle her phenomenal creations. And one of the things you will find when you research her and her work is a pattern she created for her 1981 Pirates Collection that shows up time and again on shoes, bags, shirts, and now on wallpaper!

Her classic Squiggle pattern is a sinuous yet orderly progression of a jagged rope coiling back and forth...and venerable wallcovering manufacturer Cole & Son makes, in conjunction with Westwood herself, a Squiggle wallpaper which comes in many different colorways. Available through Lee Jofa/Kravet.

In this sitting room below, not only are the walls clad in the Westwood Squiggle but the furniture is graced with the Squiggle as well! Photo by Paul Costello.

Gen and Ben Sohr of the design firm Pencil and Paper used the Westwood Squiggle wallcovering in the entry of their Nashville home.

And here is an outfit from Dame Westwood's original Pirates Collection featuring a yellow and orange squiggle shirt with matching tasseled waist sash.

I had wanted a pair of Westwood signature Squiggle Pirate boots since I first saw them in 1981...and finally in 2008, I made a pilgrimage to World's End, her original boutique in Chelsea, to take home a coveted pair (it's not an impulse buy if one has wanted something for over 30 years!). And here they are:

Dame Westwood, still fashionable at 74...

Dame Vivienne Westwood, DBE

If you are a fashionista who would love a bit of Westwood in your home, please contact me! I would so love to spread the Squiggle!
To learn more about Westwood, click here and visit her fashion website here.

Happy designing!