EAMES LOUNGE CHAIR
CHARLES & RAY EAMES, 1956
This chair went on television before it went anywhere else. 1956. NBC. A daytime show called Home, hosted by Arlene Francis. The chair comes out in silhouette first, like a mystery guest. Then the lights come up. Charles Eames stands beside it, listing the ingredients like he's describing a sandwich. Rosewood. Plywood. Leather. "Its insides are all feathers and down." Then they run a little stop-motion film where the chair builds itself, takes itself apart, and climbs into a Herman Miller shipping box. Francis looks at it and says, "Well, that is quite a departure, Charles." She wasn't kidding. The Eameses were known for chairs you could make a lot of. Molded plywood. Fiberglass. Stack them up, send them out, let everybody have one. And then this thing arrives. Expensive. One chair for one person, and that person is doing all right. But it leans back with you. It gives a little. Charles said he wanted it to have the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt. Which is a lot to ask from rosewood and leather. But look at it. He got pretty close. A lot of expensive chairs seem designed for somebody else to see you sitting in them. This one is for what happens after they leave. The cheaper Eames chairs came and went. Some disappeared from the catalog for decades before being brought back. The departure never left. People got a little bigger, though. About an inch taller, on average, since 1956. So eventually Herman Miller made a taller one.