Dimitri Omersa On Sale

Choose from an assortment of styles, material and more with respect to the dimitri omersa on sale you’re looking for at 1stDibs. A dimitri omersa on sale — often made from animal skin and leather — can elevate any home. Your living room may not be complete without a dimitri omersa on sale — find older editions for sale from the 20th Century and newer versions made as recently as the 20th Century. A dimitri omersa on sale, designed in the Mid-Century Modern, Folk Art or Modern style, is generally a popular piece of furniture.

Prices for a dimitri omersa on sale start at $199 and top out at $3,800 with the average selling for $1,796.

Omersa is best known for its iconic leather footstools and decorative objects that take on animal forms. The British furniture brand appropriately began with a pig. 

Legend has it that a man named “Old Bill” worked for eclectic department store Liberty of London and wanted to use leftover scraps of leather from handmade luggage to craft an animal-shaped footstool. The first swine-shaped ottoman was born in 1927. Decades later, in 1958, Yugoslavian native Dimitri Omersa had found work in the leather industry in a town in Hertfordshire after time spent imprisoned in the years following World War II. He was working for an independent leather company when he and Bill crossed paths. Taking a shine to one another, Dimitri took over production of the playful leather pig footstools and ottomans for Liberty, and Old Bill retired.

Omersa’s line of animal-themed furnishings expanded to include donkeys, elephants and more. The company made these home accessories in the United Kingdom specifically for Liberty until the mid-1970s and the ears of the lovable leather creatures that were produced during the era are said to have been adorned with the retailer’s branding. A leather badge now appears on the furnishings that is inclusive of the name Omersa as well as the year of manufacture. 

Today Omersa creates bespoke leather stools, desktop accessories and other seating in various animal shapes. The company’s artisans rely on traditional methods to craft each of their pieces by hand, paying particular attention to sustainable practices. To this day, Liberty continues to stock the Omersa animals it has carried since the 1930s.

In 1963, the animals crossed the pond to America and won a gold medal at the California State Fair. The mid-1960s saw a relationship take shape between Omersa and Abercrombie & Fitch —  long before it transformed into a clothing mecca for teens in the 1990s and early 2000s — while the 1980s saw Omersa forge a partnership with Scully and Scully, a purveyor of luxury furniture and decor founded in New York City.

Dimitri Omersa passed away in 1975, but the animals continued to be produced by his wife Inge for another decade.

While the ownership of the business has changed hands more than once since then, Omersa’s artisans continue to create a range of animal-shaped decorative objects and furnishings that include sheep, cows, horses and more. Annual production is limited, and each piece, made with top grain cowhide leather sourced from an environmentally responsible UK tannery and stuffed with the wood wool of European pine trees, is designed and produced by local craftspersons in Lincolnshire, England.

Find authentic Dimitri Omersa leather animals, decorative objects, seating and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Organically shaped, clean-lined and elegantly simple are three terms that well describe vintage mid-century modern furniture. The style, which emerged primarily in the years following World War II, is characterized by pieces that were conceived and made in an energetic, optimistic spirit by creators who believed that good design was an essential part of good living.

ORIGINS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Emerged during the mid-20th century 
• Informed by European modernism, Bauhaus, International style, Scandinavian modernism and Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture
• A heyday of innovation in postwar America 
• Experimentation with new ideas, new materials and new forms flourished in Scandinavia, Italy, the former Czechoslovakia and elsewhere in Europe

CHARACTERISTICS OF MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGN

• Simplicity, organic forms, clean lines  
• A blend of neutral and bold Pop art colors 
• Use of natural and man-made materials — alluring woods such as teak, rosewood and oak; steel, fiberglass and molded plywood 
• Light-filled spaces with colorful upholstery 
• Glass walls and an emphasis on the outdoors 
• Promotion of functionality

MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

• Charles and Ray Eames
• Eero Saarinen
• Milo Baughman
• Florence Knoll
• Harry Bertoia 
• Isamu Noguchi 
• George Nelson 
• Danish modernists Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, whose emphasis on natural materials and craftsmanship influenced American designers and vice versa

ICONIC MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE DESIGNS

• Eames lounge chair
• Nelson daybed
• Florence Knoll sofa
• Egg chair
• Womb chair
• Noguchi coffee table
• Barcelona chair

VINTAGE MID-CENTURY MODERN FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

The mid-century modern era saw leagues of postwar American architects and designers animated by new ideas and new technology. The lean, functionalist International-style architecture of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus eminences Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius had been promoted in the United States during the 1930s by Philip Johnson and others. New building techniques, such as “post-and-beam” construction, allowed the International-style schemes to be realized on a small scale in open-plan houses with long walls of glass.

Materials developed for wartime use became available for domestic goods and were incorporated into mid-century modern furniture designs. Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen, who had experimented extensively with molded plywood, eagerly embraced fiberglass for pieces such as the La Chaise and the Womb chair, respectively. 

Architect, writer and designer George Nelson created with his team shades for the Bubble lamp using a new translucent polymer skin and, as design director at Herman Miller, recruited the Eameses, Alexander Girard and others for projects at the legendary Michigan furniture manufacturer. 

Harry Bertoia and Isamu Noguchi devised chairs and tables built of wire mesh and wire struts. Materials were repurposed too: The Danish-born designer Jens Risom created a line of chairs using surplus parachute straps for webbed seats and backrests.

The Risom lounge chair was among the first pieces of furniture commissioned and produced by legendary manufacturer Knoll, a chief influencer in the rise of modern design in the United States, thanks to the work of Florence Knoll, the pioneering architect and designer who made the firm a leader in its field. The seating that Knoll created for office spaces — as well as pieces designed by Florence initially for commercial clients — soon became desirable for the home.

As the demand for casual, uncluttered furnishings grew, more mid-century furniture designers caught the spirit.

Classically oriented creators such as Edward Wormley, house designer for Dunbar Inc., offered such pieces as the sinuous Listen to Me chaise; the British expatriate T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings switched gears, creating items such as the tiered, biomorphic Mesa table. There were Young Turks such as Paul McCobb, who designed holistic groups of sleek, blond wood furniture, and Milo Baughman, who espoused a West Coast aesthetic in minimalist teak dining tables and lushly upholstered chairs and sofas with angular steel frames.

As the collection of vintage mid-century modern chairs, dressers, coffee tables and other furniture for the living room, dining room, bedroom and elsewhere on 1stDibs demonstrates, this period saw one of the most delightful and dramatic flowerings of creativity in design history.