All Dressed Up

MANUFACTURER
Ligne Roset
www.ligne-roset-usa.com

HEIGHT
28.54 inches

WIDTH
33.86 inches

DEPTH
32.68 inches

For designers accustomed to outfitting an entire apartment or hotel room—like Elisa and Michael Catoir, of Studio Catoir—honing in on the design of an individual piece of furniture is a novel challenge. “When we do a hotel design or the design of a flat, we cannot spend that much time on the presentation of each single object,” Michael Catoir says. A recent commission from Ligne Roset required that the duo shift gears, and imagine an armchair that could stand alone and yet be part of a “community of elements” in a room. Wisely, their first instinct was to capitalize on the manufacturer’s strengths. “Our idea was to have a structure, and then cover it with a kind of dress,” Michael says. “We had the impression that this was a specialty of Ligne Roset—that they are very good at everything that has to do with upholstery and textile production.” That instinct proved correct. The Okumi chair (the name refers to the front panel of a kimono) is draped with a cape-like cover that, remarkably, is made from a single piece of textile, with a patterned lining that peeks out between the pleats. Here, the Catoirs describe the details of their design.