Alchemy Chair By Rick Owens

The California-born fashion and furniture designer Rick Owens has developed a unique style that he describes as “luxe minimalism.” As has been the case with many American icons, the French were among the first to recognize Owens’s distinctive Goth flair. Former Vogue Paris editor Carine Roitfeld was an early adopter, and (tellingly) she’s frequently photographed in a Rick Owens coat that’s been in her closet for at least five seasons.

Though his designs are simple and spare, Owens thrives on theatricality — producing wildly original runway shows featuring gender-fluid models of all ages and shapes. Inspired by his longtime partner and muse, Michele Lamy, clothes and furniture alike feature dark grays, blacks and browns. Like his frontier forebears, Owens finds his strongest influences in nature — his furniture and housewares have simple, organic shapes, and a few items even feature his distinctly 21st-century take on antlers. (They’d look exquisite in a Bond villain’s Alpine hideaway — not a Wild West saloon). He’s also drawn to unorthodox materials like bone and petrified wood.

For many aficionados of Owens’s clothes, the gateway drug is a distressed leather motorcycle jacket. He describes the look as “glunge ”— a portmanteau of “glamour and “grunge.” Owens uses only the finest materials, although they’re not always visible from the outside. If you’re lucky enough to be swaddled in one of Owens’s edgy, sable-lined creations, you’ll know where the good stuff is hidden — and you’ll never want to take it off. Take a look at the offerings on these pages and be inspired.

Find a collection of original Rick Owens clothing and furniture on 1stDibs.

Chairs are an indispensable component of your home and office. Can you imagine your life without the vintage, new or antique chairs you love?

With the exception of rocking chairs, the majority of the seating in our homes today — Windsor chairs, chaise longues, wingback chairs — originated in either England or France. Art Nouveau chairs, the style of which also originated in those regions, embraced the inherent magnificence of the natural world with decorative flourishes and refined designs that blended both curved and geometric contour lines. While craftsmanship and styles have evolved in the past century, chairs have had a singular significance in our lives, no matter what your favorite chair looks like.

“The chair is the piece of furniture that is closest to human beings,” said Hans Wegner. The revered Danish cabinetmaker and furniture designer was prolific, having designed nearly 500 chairs over the course of his lifetime. His beloved designs include the Wishbone chair, the wingback Papa Bear chair and many more.

Other designers of Scandinavian modernist chairs introduced new dynamics to this staple with sculptural flowing lines, curvaceous shapes and efficient functionality. The Paimio armchair, Swan chair and Panton chair are vintage works of Finnish and Danish seating that left an indelible mark on the history of good furniture design.

“What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts,” said Ray Eames. 

Visionary polymaths Ray and Charles Eames experimented with bent plywood and fiberglass with the goal of producing affordable furniture for a mass market. Like other celebrated mid-century modern furniture designers of elegant low-profile furnishings — among them Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Finn Juhl — the Eameses considered ergonomic support, durability and cost, all of which should be top of mind when shopping for the perfect chair. The mid-century years yielded many popular chairs.

The Eameses introduced numerous icons for manufacturer Herman Miller, such as the Eames lounge chair and ottoman, molded plywood dining chairs the DCM and DCW (which can be artfully mismatched around your dining table) and a wealth of other treasured pieces for the home and office. 

A good chair anchors us to a place and can become an object of timeless appeal. Take a seat and browse the rich variety of vintage, new and antique chairs on 1stDibs today.