Designer Benjamin Fainlight Crafts a Packable, 3D-Printed Iteration of Pierre Jeanneret's Famous Easy Chair
Fainlight’s chair aims to show how seminal furniture designs can be updated with modern materials and production processes.
First crafted in the 1950s for civil servants, Pierre Jeanneret‘s famous Easy Chair has been given a modern-day makeover by designer Benjamin Fainlight. Boasting a 3D-printed plastic design, a packable build and a vibrant “International Klein Blue” color, the updated Easy Chair aims to show how seminal furniture designs can be updated with modern materials and production processes, much like streetwear often reinterprets archival fashion. “I saw a lot of streetwear designers and brands seeping into the furniture world – Virgil Abloh x IKEA and Vitra, Supreme x Knoll and so on. But they were really just changing colourways, materials or upholstery, and not necessarily reimagining the furniture pieces in the way streetwear tends to subvert and recontextualise references,” said Fainlight — whose day job is the Director of Global Cultural Marketing at StockX — in an interview with Dezeen.
Jeanneret and his cousin Le Corbusier originally sculpted the Easy Chair from wood and flexible caine, enabling Fainlight to translate it into a plastic build. Although Fainlight’s iteration may be constructed of a single material, the attention to detail is notable: the weave on the seat and back is a close replication of the original Easy Chair’s pattern. It’s also meant to be flat-packed, and can be easily broken down and re-assembled for portability.
Fainlight’s chair is limited to 10 units and priced at $6,500 USD. It’s available now via his webstore.
Elsewhere in the world of design check out USEDo’s five-foot long denim tuna cushion.
