Sitting Pretty
By Morris Dye
Peter Howlett, director of operations for the United Kingdom-based George Smith furniture company, believes that a well-designed and well-built armchair can suit almost any style of interior decor.
"Our Georgian chair, for instance, could exist perfectly well in an English country home, and it could also exist, with a different fabric, in a cutting-edge apartment in Soho," he says.
"Think of the 'bones' as the investment," Howlett adds, referring to the skeleton of wood and spring coils beneath the upholstery and padding. "It's the way you dress them that gives them their feel."
Although George Smith has been producing high-end sofas and chairs for only about 20 years, the company taps into a time-honored British furniture-making tradition that dates back to the early 19th century. That's when London chair designer John Howard set out to bring a new level of comfort to the simple act of sitting.
Howard is generally credited with perfecting the fundamental design of the classic upholstered armchair, incorporating solid joinery and anatomically correct contours in the wood frame, coiled springs with horsehair padding in the seat, and a fluffy overlay of feather-filled cushioning to coddle the sitter's body. Over time, the Howard & Sons trademark set a standard for quality that is still respected to this day.
"The beauty of the Howard chair is, they got the comfort right," says Guy Oliver, a top-drawer British interior designer.
"Their chairs have been designed for many decades, some for over a century, and if you go to any of the royal houses — to Sandringham, to Balmoral, to Buckingham Palace — you'll find a Howard chair."
Antique Howards are very much in demand, typically fetching upwards of $6,000 or $7,000 at auction, and the 180-year-old manufacturer continues to turn out high-end furnishings in limited numbers for an exclusive clientele.
Each piece is made to order by hand using materials and methods that have changed little since the Victorian era. Meanwhile, relative newcomer George Smith has established its name by bringing furniture of similar quality and craftsmanship to the American market, with a slick online catalog and showrooms in New York and Los Angeles.
"We use all natural materials and fibers, and we use aged and kiln-dried timber, which makes it very strong," Howlett says of George Smith furnishings, which are produced at a workshop in Newcastle on the northwest coast of England. "All the joints are done by hand. All the springs are put in by hand. All of the carpentry and all of the upholstering is hand done. There's no cutting corners."
This level of workmanship inevitably translates into high prices, with George Smith sofas selling for about $1,000 per foot of length, plus the cost of upholstery fabric, and a standard medium chair frame priced at $4,080.
The bottom line, including upholstery, typically adds up to $5,000 or more per chair.
Why spend so much on a basic piece of furniture? Howlett says it all boils down to questions of comfort and durability.
"All the good things that have taken place in the production are really not visible to the naked eye," he says. "Comfort is absolutely paramount. That's not saying that other companies can't produce a comfortable chair," he adds. "These chairs will last you a lifetime."
Artisanal furniture-makers such as George Smith and Howard Chairs also provide a greater degree of customization than the mass-market brands can deliver.
"George Smith chairs come in small, medium and large," Howlett explains. "A large depth is 43 inches, a medium is 40, and a small is 38, and this drastically changes the comfort level for individuals. I can't say one is more comfortable than another, but if you're Shaquille O'Neal, you're going to get a large, whereas if you're my height, 5 foot 6, and you're sitting on a large chair with your legs over, you're feet don't touch the ground."
"We will make anything custom to the specifications of the client," Howlett adds. For example, George Smith recently built a seamless 40-foot Chesterfield sofa for the new Soho House hotel in New York. Howlett explains that the frame was delivered in five 8-foot sections, and expert upholsterers were flown in from Newcastle to assemble the prodigious piece on site. Most homeowners would not go to such extremes, of course, but many of George Smith's customers request minor alterations to the basic designs, or provide their own upholstery fabric to cover a standard frame.
Customizations also include a full range of upholstery fabrics. "With different applications of fabric, the furniture can be whatever you want it to be," he says. "Down the road, if I don't like the application of fabric I have with it, I can change that, but I've got something that's going to be with me, basically forever."
The George Smith furniture catalog is available online at www.georgesmith.com
Next: Fancy Fridge and Space Rocks
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