Yue Chair

French architect Virginie Moriette and Chinese designer Xu Ming of Studio MVW draw on their distinct backgrounds and cultures for collaborative pieces that elegantly reimagine expected forms of furniture. The duo uses eclectic materials and sculptural forms for creative pieces as well as in their designs for interiors and architecture.

Moriette and Ming are especially inspired by nature as something that links both Western and Chinese design. Ming studied at Penninghen Graphic Arts and Interior Architecture High School in Paris as well as with designers including Didier Gomez, Eric Raffy and Paul Andreu before returning to China in 2004. Moriette studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette and likewise worked with Andreu, meeting Ming while working on a project in Shanghai. Their first furniture designs came out of the pieces they were creating for their own home, such as wooden bookshelves that evoked the shapes of tree trunks. Together they cofounded Studio MVW in Shanghai in 2006.

Moriette and Ming now work on smaller scale projects like limited-edition objects and individual furniture pieces as well as entire interiors, regularly harmonizing disparate materials such as bronze, jade, marble and lacquer. Their Jinye series, for instance, features tables made from Patagonian quartzite while their JinShi console involves discs made of pink jade that are illuminated from within. Their architecture and interior designs include the Aoyama Lab Dessert Bar in Beijing, which juxtaposes glass and mesh with wood and stone, and the Shanghai showroom for Pierre Cardin where circular portals frame the housewares.

As they told Design Anthology: “Whatever the object or project, we draw inspiration from its context, the client’s needs and personality and always from nature, with the objective of giving all projects a special identity with a hint of poetry.” Studio MVW’s work has included designs for Giorgetti, Roche Bobois and Richemont Group.

Find authentic Studio MVW tables, case pieces and storage cabinets 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.