How do you tell a real Kartell?

To tell a real Kartell, look for the maker's markings. Nearly all authentic pieces will feature an embossed mark that indicates the Kartell name, the product name and the designer name. If your piece lacks any of these three marks or the marking is printed in ink on the piece or on a paper label, it may be a replica. You can also research identifying characteristics for your particular type of furniture and use these to evaluate your item. Alternatively, you can seek the opinion of a certified appraiser or knowledgeable dealer. Find a variety of Kartell furniture on 1stDibs.

Plastic Kartell Chair

Q: Is Kartell an Italian brand?

Yes, Kartell is an Italian brand. Giulio Castelli and his wife, Anna Ferrieri, founded the company in Milan in 1949. Originally, Kartell was an industrial design firm, producing items like ski racks for automobiles and laboratory equipment to replace breakable glass with sturdy plastic. It first introduced its housewares division in 1953. Find a large selection of Kartell furniture on 1stDibs.

Kartell Outdoor

Italian Outdoor Chairs

New Objectivity

Kartell Green

Philippe Starck For Kartell

Kartell Mid Century

Plastic

Recent Sales

Joe Colombo Universale Plastic Chair for Kartell White Italy Vintage Space Age

Unavailable

H 28.35 in W 16.54 in D 18.12 in

Joe Colombo Universale Plastic Chair for Kartell White Italy Vintage Space Age

By Joe Colombo, Kartell

Located in Alsdorf, NW

The Universale chair is one of the first molded plastic chairs created.

Category

Vintage 1970s Italian Space Age Chairs

Materials

Plastic

Set of Chair in Plastic and Metal Frame, Philippe Starck for Kartell Italy 1980

Unavailable

H 48 in W 47.5 in D 80 in

Set of Chair in Plastic and Metal Frame, Philippe Starck for Kartell Italy 1980

By Philippe Starck, Kartell

Located in Manzano, Friuli Venezia Giulia

Set of chair in plastic and metal frame, by Philippe Starck for Kartell, Italy, 1980.

Category

Vintage 1980s Italian Chairs

Materials

Metal

Sold

H 35.75 in W 15.25 in D 16 in

Contemporary Modern Set of 6 Victoria Kartell Ghost Side Chairs by Starck

By Kartell

Located in Keego Harbor, MI

Dimensions: 15.25" W x 16" D x 35.75" H Seat Height: 19" Seat Depth: 15".

Category

Late 20th Century Side Chairs

Materials

Gray upholstered Clap Chair, Patricia Urquiola for Kartell

Sold

H 33.5 in W 23 in D 22.3 in

Gray upholstered Clap Chair, Patricia Urquiola for Kartell

By Patricia Urquiola, Kartell

Located in Tulsa, OK

Kartell Clap chair designed by Patricia Urquiola. The armchair bearing the was specially designed for the contract sector and to extend Kartell’s Soft line. Tortoise colored technopo...

Category

2010s Italian Modern Dining Room Chairs

Materials

Upholstery, Plastic

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Category

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Materials

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Joe Colombo Modell 4867 Universale for Kartell Dining Chair Set of 3

By Joe Colombo, Kartell

Located in Munich, Bavaria

Italian Classic design Plastic/ Polypropylene chairs chairs in black. Modell 48672500Universale Design Joe Colombo for Kartell. The chairs are produced in 1979. Set of 3 Chairs. ...

Category

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Get Updated with New Arrivals

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Plastic Kartell Chair For Sale on 1stDibs

Choose from an assortment of styles, material and more with respect to the plastic kartell chair you’re looking for at 1stDibs. Frequently made of plastic, metal and steel, every plastic kartell chair was constructed with great care. There are 51 variations of the antique or vintage plastic kartell chair you’re looking for, while we also have 49 modern editions of this piece to choose from as well. Whether you’re looking for an older or newer plastic kartell chair, there are earlier versions available from the 20th Century and newer variations made as recently as the 21st Century. A plastic kartell chair is a generally popular piece of furniture, but those created in Modern and Mid-Century Modern styles are sought with frequency.

How Much is a Plastic Kartell Chair?

A plastic kartell chair can differ in price owing to various characteristics — the average selling price 1stDibs is $648, while the lowest priced sells for $155 and the highest can go for as much as $8,000.

Kartell for sale on 1stDibs

The Italian design giant Kartell transformed plastic from the stuff of humble household goods into a staple of luxury design in the 1960s. Founded in Milan by Italian chemical engineer Giulio Castelli (1920–2006) and his wife Anna Ferrieri (1918–2006), Kartell began as an industrial design firm, producing useful items like ski racks for automobiles and laboratory equipment designed to replace breakable glass with sturdy plastic. Even as companies like Olivetti and Vespa were making Italian design popular in the 1950s, typewriters and scooters were relatively costly, and Castelli and Ferrieri wanted to provide Italian consumers with affordable, stylish goods.

They launched a housewares division of Kartell in 1953, making lighting fixtures and kitchen tools and accessories from colorful molded plastic. Consumers in the postwar era were initially skeptical of plastic goods, but their affordability and infinite range of styles and hues eventually won devotees. Tupperware parties in the United States made plastic storage containers ubiquitous in postwar homes, and Kartell’s ingenious designs for juicers, dustpans, and dish racks conquered Europe. Kartell designer Gino Colombini was responsible for many of these early products, and his design for the KS 1146 Bucket won the Compasso d’Oro prize in 1955.

Buoyed by its success in the home goods market, Kartell introduced its Habitat division in 1963. Designers Marco Zanuso and Richard Sapper created the K1340 (later called the K 4999) children’s chair that year, and families enjoyed their bright colors and light weight, which made them easy for kids to pick up and move. In 1965, Joe Colombo (1924–78) created one of Kartell’s few pieces of non-plastic furniture, the 4801 chair, which sits low to the ground and comprised of just three curved pieces of plywood. (In 2012, Kartell reissued the chair in plastic.) Colombo followed up on the success of the 4801 with the iconic 4867 Universal Chair in 1967, which, like Verner Panton’s S chair, is made from a single piece of plastic. The colorful, stackable injection-molded chair was an instant classic. That same year, Kartell introduced Colombo’s KD27 table lamp. Ferrierei’s cylindrical 4966 Componibili storage module debuted in 1969.

Kartell achieved international recognition for its innovative work in 1972, when a landmark exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz called “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” opened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. That show introduced American audiences to the work of designers such as Gaetano Pesce; Ettore Sottsass, founder of the Memphis Group; and the firms Archizoom and Superstudio (both firms were among Italy's Radical design groups) — all of whom were using wit, humor and unorthodox materials to create a bracingly original interior aesthetic.

Castelli and Ferrieri sold Kartell to Claudio Luti, their son-in-law, in 1988, and since then, Luti has expanded the company’s roster of designers.

Kartell produced Ron Arad’s Bookworm wall shelf in 1994, and Philippe Starck’s La Marie chair in 1998. More recently, Kartell has collaborated with the Japanese collective Nendo, Spanish architect Patricia Urquiola and glass designer Tokujin Yoshioka, among many others. Kartell classics can be found in museums around the world, including MoMA, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. In 1999, Claudio Luti established the Museo Kartell to tell the company’s story, through key objects from its innovative and colorful history.

Find vintage Kartell tables, seating, table lamps and other furniture on 1stDibs.

Materials: Plastic Furniture

Arguably the world’s most ubiquitous man-made material, plastic has impacted nearly every industry. In contemporary spaces, new and vintage plastic furniture is quite popular and its use pairs well with a range of design styles.

From the Italian lighting artisans at Fontana Arte to venturesome Scandinavian modernists such as Verner Panton, who created groundbreaking interiors as much as he did seating — see his revolutionary Panton chair — to contemporary multidisciplinary artists like Faye Toogood, furniture designers have been pushing the boundaries of plastic forever.

When The Graduate's Mr. McGuire proclaimed, “There’s a great future in plastics,” it was more than a laugh line. The iconic quote is an allusion both to society’s reliance on and its love affair with plastic. Before the material became an integral part of our lives — used in everything from clothing to storage to beauty and beyond — people relied on earthly elements for manufacturing, a process as time-consuming as it was costly.

Soon after American inventor John Wesley Hyatt created celluloid, which could mimic luxury products like tortoiseshell and ivory, production hit fever pitch, and the floodgates opened for others to explore plastic’s full potential. The material altered the history of design — mid-century modern legends Charles and Ray Eames, Joe Colombo and Eero Saarinen regularly experimented with plastics in the development of tables and chairs, and today plastic furnishings and decorative objects are seen as often indoors as they are outside.

Find vintage plastic lounge chairs, outdoor furniture, lighting and more on 1stDibs.

Finding the Right Seating for You

With entire areas of our homes reserved for “sitting rooms,” the value of quality antique and vintage seating cannot be overstated.

Fortunately, the design of side chairs, armchairs and other lounge furniture — since what were, quite literally, the early perches of our ancestors — has evolved considerably.

Among the earliest standard seating furniture were stools. Egyptian stools, for example, designed for one person with no seat back, were x-shaped and typically folded to be tucked away. These rudimentary chairs informed the design of Greek and Roman stools, all of which were a long way from Sori Yanagi's Butterfly stool or Alvar Aalto's Stool 60. In the 18th century and earlier, seats with backs and armrests were largely reserved for high nobility.

The seating of today is more inclusive but the style and placement of chairs can still make a statement. Antique desk chairs and armchairs designed in the style of Louis XV, which eventually included painted furniture and were often made of rare woods, feature prominently curved legs as well as Chinese themes and varied ornaments. Much like the thrones of fairy tales and the regency, elegant lounges crafted in the Louis XV style convey wealth and prestige. In the kitchen, the dining chair placed at the head of the table is typically reserved for the head of the household or a revered guest.

Of course, with luxurious vintage or antique furnishings, every chair can seem like the best seat in the house. Whether your preference is stretching out on a plush sofa, such as the Serpentine, designed by Vladimir Kagan, or cozying up in a vintage wingback chair, there is likely to be a comfy classic or contemporary gem for you on 1stDibs.

With respect to the latest obsessions in design, cane seating has been cropping up everywhere, from sleek armchairs to lounge chairs, while bouclé fabric, a staple of modern furniture design, can be seen in mid-century modern, Scandinavian modern and Hollywood Regency furniture styles.

Admirers of the sophisticated craftsmanship and dark woods frequently associated with mid-century modern seating can find timeless furnishings in our expansive collection of lounge chairs, dining chairs and other items — whether they’re vintage editions or alluring official reproductions of iconic designs from the likes of Hans Wegner or from Charles and Ray Eames. Shop our inventory of Egg chairs, designed in 1958 by Arne Jacobsen, the Florence Knoll lounge chair and more.

No matter your style, the collection of unique chairs, sofas and other seating on 1stDibs is surely worthy of a standing ovation.