Born Again

At Modernlink’s ICFF booth, a chair of leather and steel spun slowly atop a slender pole. The display announced the return of Scimitar, a design that had been shelved for 22 years. A collaboration between architect Preben Fabricius, who died in 1984, and 75-year old Jørgen Kastholm, Scimitar was originally unveiled at the Copenhagen Museum of Industrial Arts in 1963. “Look how full I am,” Kastholm says of the reproduction, with tears in his eyes. “It’s like being reborn.”

Gert Auhagen, owner of Danish manufacturer Bo-ex Furniture, bought the production rights more than two decades ago, and it took almost that long for him to perfect the complicated fabrication process. The sole manufacturing change is invisible: a microchip implanted in the bentwood back to thwart copies and theft. That, along with the fact that every chair built requires a new mold since it breaks during production, makes it pricey. “We hope people will take pride in owning a little piece of perfect rather than a lot of almost,” Auhagen says.