classic living room furniture

the ultimate style iconmanhattan a new american classic when i was with pottery barn in the ninetiesone of our favorite things to do was to go to europe to look for product ideas andthe very best places in europe to find the best product ideas were in the flea marketstwo of my favorite flea markets to go to uh in paris were clignancourt in paris and the other was a flea market calledporte de vanves and they were probably the best flea marketsin all of europe we would get up early in the morning usually the flea markets would start at aboutfour in the morning and so you had to get

there at four because the best items which show up and all the dealers fromall over would be there at four i remember well one flea market when these leather chairs began to arrive i think thatthey were becoming popular with europeans which is whythey were starting to appear for the first time uh and when we first saw them we knewthey'd be perfect after we started seeing these chairs pop-upin flea markets all over europe uh we started to learn about the originsfrom paris and looked for the perfect chair

what we learned is the origin of the clubchair was in paris in nineteen twenties when the first club chairs were created and theywere created for men's clubs in paris uh in fact the chairs that we bought if you look closely you'll see the originallogo of the club uh was printed on the back of the chair andthen over the years was scrubbed off so you have to look pretty carefully to see it after we started seeing the chairs appearin all the flea markets in europe we decided that we would focus on the chairs from thenineteen thirties and look for a generously proportioned

leather chair our search took us to manhattan and we ultimately found the perfect chair inmanhattan there were design details on the original chairthat we knew we wanted to keep there was a beautiful line of piping all around the edge ofthe chair. the other thing about the chair is it had wooden feet that were beautifullydesigned that we wanted to maintain we went and found leather to wrap aroundthe chair it was a cow leather from argentina with a perfect

patina for the chair the manhattan chair officially launched inthe mid-nineties. we gave a full page shot it was a beautiful chair it photographed very well and it was an immediate success our customers love the chair and it becameone of the iconic pieces in the collection i think the beauty of the manhattan chairis that it's timeless no matter how styles change in people's homes this chair is beautifulin any room at any time it brings back a time in the twenties whenpeople spend time in clubs

and enjoyed life and it's a very romantic time that i thinkeveryone can feel a part of when they sit in this chair pottery barn

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