Dig It Armchair

Transcending classification, Gio Pagani’s furniture designs span several styles in an eclectic expression of ongoing artistry. Forever evolving, Pagani draws inspiration from history, fashion and social movements to imbue his furniture with symbolism unique to each collection.

Maison GIOPAGANI, GIOPAGANI Couture and GIOPAGANI Atelier are the three main branches that make up Pagani’s namesake brand. While Maison is the creative hub for all things architectural and interior design, Couture focuses on furniture design, with Atelier serving as the physical space in which to display Pagani’s designs.

GIOPAGANI Couture previewed at the 2015 edition of Milan Design Week before fully showcasing its furniture the following year at the Atelier. Categorized into Capsule Collections, each of Pagani’s design series embodies a different style and theme. 

One Capsule Collection, Senza Fine, is an ode to Italian design culture, emphasizing bold color and patterns, while another, Sartoria, draws from the fashion world as a sort of “haute couture” furniture collection centered on specific material choices. A third, Chat Noir, meets Paris in a very Art Nouveau–inspired collection, while Éclat D’eau introduces Art Deco elements into its lighting designs. Illogica Allegria is a second lighting collection — this time, featuring Murano glass and metal in modern designs.

“I often see myself as a tailor, a figure who, entering deeply into the customer’s culture, tries to better interpret his story . . . in an excellent way,” Pagani has said of his bespoke interiors and custom furnishings.

He designed interiors for both of the Rock restaurants on the island of Sardinia and led the redesign of Drogheria Parini on Via della Spiga in Milan. A collaboration with innovative wallpaper company Wall&decò introduced new energy and perspective to the use of contemporary wallpaper, tactfully bringing it back into the fold of interior design.

On 1stDibs, find a collection of GIOPAGANI seating, tables and lighting.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw sweeping social change and major scientific advances — both of which contributed to a new aesthetic: modernism. Rejecting the rigidity of Victorian artistic conventions, modernists sought a new means of expression. References to the natural world and ornate classical embellishments gave way to the sleek simplicity of the Machine Age. Architect Philip Johnson characterized the hallmarks of modernism as “machine-like simplicity, smoothness or surface [and] avoidance of ornament.”

Early practitioners of modernist design include the De Stijl (“The Style”) group, founded in the Netherlands in 1917, and the Bauhaus School, founded two years later in Germany.

Followers of both groups produced sleek, spare designs — many of which became icons of daily life in the 20th century. The modernists rejected both natural and historical references and relied primarily on industrial materials such as metal, glass, plywood, and, later, plastics. While Bauhaus principals Marcel Breuer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe created furniture from mass-produced, chrome-plated steel, American visionaries like Charles and Ray Eames worked in materials as novel as molded plywood and fiberglass. Today, Breuer’s Wassily chair, Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair — crafted with his romantic partner, designer Lilly Reich — and the Eames lounge chair are emblems of progressive design and vintage originals are prized cornerstones of collections.

It’s difficult to overstate the influence that modernism continues to wield over designers and architects — and equally difficult to overstate how revolutionary it was when it first appeared a century ago. But because modernist furniture designs are so simple, they can blend in seamlessly with just about any type of décor. Don’t overlook them.

Armchairs have run the gamut from prestige to ease and everything in between, and everyone has an antique or vintage armchair that they love.

Long before industrial mass production democratized seating, armchairs conveyed status and power.

In ancient Egypt, the commoners took stools, while in early Greece, ceremonial chairs of carved marble were designated for nobility. But the high-backed early thrones of yore, elevated and ornate, were merely grandiose iterations of today’s armchairs.

Modern-day armchairs, built with functionality and comfort in mind, are now central to tasks throughout your home. Formal dining armchairs support your guests at a table for a cheery feast, a good drafting chair with a deep seat is parked in front of an easel where you create art and, elsewhere, an ergonomic wonder of sorts positions you at the desk for your 9 to 5.

When placed under just the right lamp where you can lounge comfortably, both elbows resting on the padded supports on each side of you, an upholstered armchair — or a rattan armchair for your light-suffused sunroom — can be the sanctuary where you’ll read for hours.

If you’re in the mood for company, your velvet chesterfield armchair is a place to relax and be part of the conversation that swirls around you. Maybe the dialogue is about the beloved Papa Bear chair, a mid-century modern masterpiece from Danish carpenter and furniture maker Hans Wegner, and the wingback’s strong association with the concept of cozying up by the fireplace, which we can trace back to its origins in 1600s-era England, when the seat’s distinctive arm protrusions protected the sitter from the heat of the period’s large fireplaces.

If the fireside armchair chat involves spirited comparisons, your companions will likely probe the merits of antique and vintage armchairs such as Queen Anne armchairs, Victorian armchairs or even Louis XVI armchairs, as well as the pros and cons of restoration versus conservation.

Everyone seems to have a favorite armchair and most people will be all too willing to talk about their beloved design. Whether that’s the unique Favela chair by Brazilian sibling furniture designers Fernando and Humberto Campana, who repurposed everyday objects to provocative effect; or Marcel Breuer’s futuristic tubular metal Wassily lounge chair; the functionality-first LC series from Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret; or the Eames lounge chair of the mid-1950s created by Charles and Ray Eames, there is an iconic armchair for everyone and every purpose. Find yours on 1stDibs right now.