Färg & Blanche designed the Emily chair for dining or conference tables as a version of their larger Emma armchair, also produced by Gärsnäs.
“Emily is our Emma easy chair’s little sister,” said the designers. “The family likeness can be seen in the needlework – they are both upholstered but differently patterned.”
The chair back curves around the seat to form the arms. Padding is quilted into sections, creating a simple pattern on both sides of the back support. It comes upholstered in fabric or leather and solid ash legs poke out from short sleeves of material below the seat.
Stockholm 2014: design duo Färg & Blanche created this furniture collection by sewing pieces of plywood together (+ slideshow).
Färg & Blanche used a heavy-duty sewing machine more commonly used for making car seats to stitch together sections of plywood.
Wood Layer Armchair
“No one had ever tried using such a hard material on the machine,” Emma Marga Blanche told Dezeen.
After discovering that it was possible to sew the wood together, the pair experimented with different thicknesses and densities to push the limits of the machine.
“It was really exciting to find that this actually worked,” said Blanche. “We went thicker and thicker with the wood, so the ideas kept coming and developing.”
Pocket Cupboard
The first item they created in the Wood Tailoring range was the Pocket Cupboard, a modular storage system with leather pockets attached onto the front of the doors.
“Sewing is so heavily associated with the fashion industry but we like to think we’re tailoring each of these pieces to create Haute Couture furniture,” said Fredrik Färg.
Wood contours that get darker as they become smaller form the back of the Wood Layer Armchair, which arcs around a leather seat.
Bespoke Chair
The pieces of the smaller Bespoke Chair are steamed to bend them before stitching, while the armchair is sewn flat and then glued into its curved shape.
Färg & Blanche also sewed a large freestanding cupboard from a dark grey insulation material, with a topographical motif on the sides similar to the back of the armchair.
Färg & Blanche are a Swedish and French duo who worked independently before combining their efforts and setting up their own studio in Stockholm four years ago.
Fredrik Färg and Emma Marga Blanche’s latest innovation Wood Tailoring will be presented at the Stockholm Furniture Fair for the first time. Sewing technology is taken to its extreme with a thoroughly researched craftsmanship.
“We have tried extreme sewing technology the past years,” says Fredrik and Emma jointly, “not at least in the Emma armchair for Gärsnäs where the stitch was part of the construction. Now we have gone even further by reducing everything, only a shell of wood with the sewing as pattern generator and a structural element.”
Wood Tailoring employs sewing machine to stitch directly on to the wood in order to join different parts together while at the same time creating patterns which has an aesthetic of their own. Layer on layer of thick plywood is stitched together to make the Wood Layer Armchair, and where the sewing presents a topographical map with an organic pattern that resembles the growth of wood.
“Sewing is usually seen as something, which has to do with soft materials. We use our heavy-duty sewing machines to sew in wood. And, yes, it’s a raw poetry that fuses the hand-made with the industrial.”
Wood Tailoring is a new technology, which explores radical new possibilities in the joining of parts in furniture. The first products are the Wood Layer Armchair, the Bespoke Chair and the Pocket Cupboard, all to be presented at the Stockholm Furniture Fair.
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