For my birthday this year, I decided to get myself a piece of used furniture; it didn’t necessarily need to be designer but I did want it to be an investment and a lifetime piece. Perhaps it’s a side effect of aging. Perhaps it’s a side effect of the amount of time we’ve had to spend at home because of the pandemic (though I’ve always been a homebody, I learned the important lesson of having quality pieces of furniture the hard way when the folding conference chairs I acquired from the office’s liquidation and was using in my kitchen, absolutely wrecked my lower back.)
This 1961 Herman Miller newspaper ad suggests the Eames plywood chair was $35 at the time.
I visited my usual vintage stores for some inspiration and when one of the sellers I had recently gotten to know asked me what I was looking for and how he could help me find it, I instantly pictured all of the historic mid-century homes, and their living rooms, I had read about just a couple months ago. The homes featured in the book were most commonly furnished with pieces by designers like Le Corbusier and Eames; pieces that are no longer mass produced nor economically accessible, frankly. (According to a discussion between Charles and Hugh De Pree of Herman Miller in the book The Story of Eames Furniture, the final production prototype of the lounge chair was to retail for $310.)
As much as I’d love to own an authentic Le Corbusier chaise, as long as I’m living in the converted attic that is my current apartment, it’s not going to happen any time soon. I continued my hunt but narrowed my search to something that I definitely have space for and is a little more practical; an office chair (we’ve come full circle re: side effects of the pandemic). The ergonomics of chairs correlate to their price which means unfortunately, office chairs can cost a pretty penny. But that also means, given just how much time we spend in them, cost per wear is lower.
At least that’s what I told myself when I spent $420 on a chair that was “love at first poor-quality-Craigslist-image sight.” To be completely honest, I didn’t do any research into the chair or the designer before buying it (nor was it really mentioned in the listing; only that it was a Knoll chair from an estate sale several years ago), which is why I’m writing this post to justify the purchase and reassure you of my decision. Spoiler alert: it was totally worth $420.
I’ve definitely seen the this particular chair in interior design inspo pics and in the homes of people whose style I admire, so I knew it was a coveted chair. Turns out, Knoll isn’t even the name of the designer, but the name of the manufacturer and distributor. After some digging, I learned that this particular model is called the Pollock Executive Chair, named after its designer Charles Pollock, who at one point worked for lead designer at Herman Miller (I love it when I discover unexpected connections), George Nelson.
Pollock set out to create a chair inspired by a single line. “Everything has an edge and everything is a line…I experimented with wire and curved the edge…I developed the idea of ‘rim technology’ and hit on the design. It doesn’t rust, it doesn’t tarnish, it doesn’t fade. It keeps its visual appearance almost forever. In other words you have a visually pleasing color or texture or chrome finish articulated in a fashion that goes around the edge of the chair, which is beautiful and acts as a guard against destructing the chair no matter where you hit it….up, down, front, side, back, whatever.”
This model was introduced to the world in 1965 and has been in production ever since (my chair is dated Aug 11, 1983). It’s a staple in American office culture so it makes sense that it screamed ICONIC to me when I first saw its listing. Perhaps you recognize it from Mad Men (I don’t because I’ve never watched the show.) Luckily, because it’s still in production, I know exactly how much the Pollock chair is worth, not even factoring in the historic and sentimental value that vintage ones carry, and can confidently say that I’ve outdone myself with this year’s birthday present. Good luck to me next year.
