Retro chairs

A retro chair is a great way to assert your personality in a living room. Status chairs with a swivel base were very fashionable in the 50s and 60s. Now they are being rediscovered by a new generation. We look at some of the most famous retro chairs.

Eames Chair, 1956

Perhaps the most famous retro chair of all, the Eames Chair, was designed by Charles Eames in 1956 and manufactured by Herman Miller. It has remained one of the most highly desirable pieces of furniture ever since.

Egg Chair, 1958

Arne Jacobsen's Egg Chair from 1958 started a fashion for stylish swivel chairs in leather and vinyl in the home and in the boardroom.

G-Plan World's Most Comfortable Chair

G-Plan's World's Most Comfortable Chair was influenced by the Egg Chair. Its deeply buttoned vinyl or fabric covering was in the manner of a Chesterfield sofa, but also very fashionable in the sixties. The G-Plan's World's Most Comfortable Chair became a status symbol. It was the ideal chair for the company director in his own home. Both this chair and the Parker Knoll Recliner were in Cliff Brumby's living room in the 1971 Michael Caine film, 'Get Carter'. Both chairs were finished in white.

Parker Knoll Recliner

The Parker Knoll Recliner was the other high status chair of the 60s and 70s. Also favoured by Cliff Brumby in 'Get Carter', the Parker Knoll Recliner could recline to an almost horizontal position. Usually the recliner would be bought with a similar, but not matching, sofa and chairs.

Barcelona Chair, 1929

Still a status symbol in the 60s, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's 1929 classic chair influenced furniture design for thirty or forty years. It was a symbol of modernist good taste.

The buttoned design influenced G-Plan furniture, as well as many 60s bars decor and the interior of the Ford Zodiac Executive.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Barcelona Chair