Fashion. From Georgian to 60's...and back again!

I was recently made painfully aware that next year will be the 20th anniversary of the "birth" of my trading name - Former Glory. Where did all that time go? Thinking about the range of furniture in the workshop these days and looking back, it's amazing how fashion has changed peoples preferences over so few years in relative terms.

In the beginning it was mainly Victorian and Georgian furniture that came in for restoration. Spoonback chairs and heavily carved walnut, little barley twisted tables and anything made from rosewood with ornate inlay and mirrors. Pretty, practical, occasionally OTT and to be honest sometimes huge, heavy things that were difficult to move and consequently gave me problems with my sacroiliac joint that I still suffer from today.

After about ten years it became more about Arts and Crafts. William Morris, Godwin, Macintosh etc. The prices of anything from this design period went through the roof and people realised that it made good economic sense to keep their Art furniture in good order. We saw plenty from this period, probably because lots of it had hand woven seating and labour intensive oil and wax finishes that need attention periodically.

Nobody wanted "modern" back then. I remember distinctly being lambasted for having a soft spot for this practical simplicity of Danish mid 20th century design and worse still being raucously laughed at for lusting after the slightly imperfect hand made beauty of rush seated country chairs.

But then more recently the world changed again. Modernist designs were "in". The Bauhaus, Danish and progressive designs, all previously largely unloved and out of favour, were finding their way to our workshop. I've lost count of how many "Cesca" chair seats we've replaced, (named 'Cesca after Francesca, daughter of the designer) and if I had £1 for every Danish chair we've seen........well!

Finally a proper comfort zone has arrived for me.

So.....where next? Shall we go around in a big circle and find a renewed interest in the classic lines of the Regency period, or will it be a yearning for the decorative - a return to Victoriana?

Well that's anybody's guess, but my money is on anything original, comfortable to use, beautifully made, practical and SMALL. All power to the independent makers of this World, your time has come!

What say you?

Weather and work

I'm sure everyone is fed up of hearing about the British weather, discussing it is our all consuming pastime. But I must admit, I can't remember another time when it has rained so much and been so cool and windy at this time of year. There have been floods everywhere, local businesses losing all of their stock to the freak conditions and trees broken like matchsticks causing chaos on the roads. One poor soul was queuing in traffic in the next village along when a massive oak just fell....landing on his van. Luckily he told his passenger to get down on the floor as the tree struck, both of them walked away from the scene shaken but mostly unhurt. The road was closed for the rest of the day while they chainsawed the lovely old tree into manageable chunks and removed it. The old church yard where it grew looks so different now, it's like a huge slug has eaten a chunk out of the vegetation!

We have been lucky in many ways, yes the drive and garden have been under a fair few inches of water, veg and border plants have struggled to survive and most worryingly we haven't seen our tame blackbird Mrs B for about two weeks now, (hopefully she's raising young....) But all in all the only real problems it has caused is with work, nothing is drying as quickly as it should. Humidity is always a problem when you're trying to glue, polish or refinish furniture so all of these things are taking much longer than normal to do, frustrating, but not life threatening!

We've had a lot of work to do over the past two weeks, dozens of cane panels, a glut of rush armchairs, more chapel chairs for St. Michael's Mount and even a couple of unusual Danish drop-on seat pads.

At the weekend we needed to go to the yard to get some rattan poles out of storage for some customer orders. No problem you'd think, but the yard is next to the airport and you have to cross a causeway over the river to get there. Well, you've probably guessed, we got there to find the water gently lapping 12" over the top of the highest point of the causeway and one car already broken down after trying to get through it! We turned back for home. By the time we had a chance to go again two days later the water had gone down, but only just below the level of the road.

As I type it has started to rain.....AGAIN! Heavy almost hail like blobs are beating on the roof of the workshop. Wherever you are please be safe and I hope you can make the most of the day.

Fridays finished jobs

It has been a looooong week. Lots of little jobs have finally been finished thankfully, although lots of the bigger jobs seem to be taking forever. So what did we do....?

Two of these "looped" Danish cord chairs, but unfortunately when they were collected today they were replaced with two more.

A repair to a bad split along the cane rail in this window seat.

Made and replaced a missing detail bracket on a Morris armchair.

Restored this lovely old bodgers stool.

And finally we oiled and dried this lot for a restaurant in London.

There were loads of other bits inbetween, I'm still chugging away at the Gio Ponti seats and gluing up various chair frames......... Thank goodness it's the weekend.

Weaving Wishbones and Handles

The set of eight Wegner Wishbones are nearly finished. Here they are so far, six are completely finished, number seven is cleaned waiting to be finished and number eight is still exactly as it was when it arrived with us.

 

Hopefully all will be finished by the middle of next week.

Another job finished last week - the wrapping of these two pot handles.

The customer sent us the remains of the wrapping from the left hand handle to copy, the detail weaving was originally stained blue, so some of the new cane had to be dyed. Something a bit out of the ordinary and two very pretty pots.

Hans Wegner's Wishbone or "Y" chairs

"A chair is to have no backside. It should be beautiful from all sides and angles." - Hans Wegner

One of the design icons of the 20th century - Hans Wegner's "Wishbone" chair, first produced in 1949 by Carl Hansen in Denmark is instantly recognisable. Still in production today and now available in a multitude of colours and finishes, the continued demand speaks volumes for this visionary designer's abilities. I wonder, how many of today's designs will not just stand the test of time, but will also be popular and desirable across all age groups in 60+ years time?

We've been very lucky to have restored many of these chairs, inevitably most of the early ones we see have been in the same family from new and have often travelled around the globe with their faithful owners. When you talk to the owners, it quickly becomes obvious that their chairs are old friends that they couldn't bear to lose. Maybe that's why so many are quite happy to have them restored once they are looking tired and neglected - a bit like paying for someone you love to have a full facelift!

They're not the easiest of chairs to restore, (as I've said on this blog in the past!) and I do still wonder whether Mr Wegner ever actually did chair seat weaving because some of his designs really do test even the most experienced weavers full range of skills to the limit. But then nothing worth having is ever easy is it? Sorry for the ramble, but as we are working on 9 of them at the moment I've got loads of time to ponder....it occurred to me that we could do with a few more Mr Wegners - it would solve a lot of problems, (bear with me!) You see really good design lasts forever. Why change something when you still love looking at it and it functions so well that nothing can beat it? An end to some of our "throwaway" tendencies perhaps? Hmmm.....

So here it is today, in all it's "Former Glory", an early Wishbone chair with it's freshly cleaned frame and a new seat. The next set we're working on were going to have black woven seats, but there are problems with the colourfastness of the new cord. Having discussed the problems with the chairs owners, they decided that they would like to have them home by Christmas, so they too will now be woven in the natural coloured cord. Otherwise they would have to live without them for another couple of months before the new colourfast black cord is available.

See what I mean about loyalty?

"Many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I've answered that it...was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest." - Hans Wegner

Wishbones and Tricorns

Wishbones, or Mr Wegner's "Y" chairs, all eight of them.

But these will be very special when they're restored, the owner is going to have them re-woven in black Danish cord and as the chairs are early oak versions, they have beautiful golden colour, what a contrast that will make!

Meanwhile another unusual piece.

A three legged rush chair. The workshop is full to bursting at the moment, but I am looking forward to working on this one. Which leads me on to the.....

Word of the Week.

Excoriate - scrape layers off. (something we'll be doing a lot of)

Wisdom of the Week.

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing - you're right." - Henry Ford

Shoulder ache!

It was all going swimmingly well............until my shoulder REALLY started to hurt. This is the culprit:

It's a huge armchair designed by Hans Wegner known as CH22 and as you work on it, you are constantly reaching over, pulling through or otherwise in an awkward position!! I'll go back to doing something a bit less stressful I think....., even close cane weaving is beginning to look more appealing.

Variety is the spice of life - antique versus modernism.

Fashion is a fickle thing........Two restoration jobs that arrived yesterday bear it out. Top quality traditional antique furniture still has a place it seems in interior decoration, especially if it is a bit out of the ordinary, pretty, small and useable. But the big change over the last few years has been the longing gaze back to the 60's and all that it represented. Danish modern, Ercol, G Plan were all names I would never have associated with the job that I do - after all, I remember them when they were new and "trendy"! I never thought that one day I would spend as much, (if not more) of my time restoring this modern genre of furniture than the classical antique.

So here are the two items sitting together.

Both have their beauty, but could they sit together in the same space? Personally I don't think so, but in separate rooms of the same home, yes. I like both of these designs, but for very different reasons. The Wegner CH22 is masculine, sinuous - built to last and functional, whereas the stool is so delicate and ornate but just as useful. They both stand out and make a statement in interior design.

And from my point of view? There's a lot of HARD WORK there!

Baskets, Danish Cord and a Hat

Busy week. Still no workshop and as a result, bedlam everywhere else around the place.

With less than two weeks until our next event - the Oak Fair at Stock Gaylard - we have been working hard not just on clients furniture, but also on some interesting bits and pieces for the demonstration. A few experiments were called for, like a "Paper Hat"! One of our friends called it a "Paper Pith Helmet", perhaps he should be an "ex" friend! Also some splint basketry, just for a change.

We are still overrun with Danish chairs, (which is a good thing). This time double rail Wegner designed teak and beech dining chairs.

The target for the middle of next week is to finish at least two close woven cane chairs, weave two arms of a bergere armchair, do some more basketweaving, finish the metamorphic desk restoration and reseat six standard single rail Danish chairs. You can't judge failure or success unless you have a target!

Oak Danish chairs with black cord seats

No more progress on the workshop - yet......But despite the lack of space, we did manage to finish the set of eight Danish chairs. This set are a little bit different for us, partly because they made out of oak not the usual teak and our client wanted the seats re-woven using black Danish cord. They look stunning. The contrast between the pale wood and the black seats is striking, it makes it even harder to believe that these chairs are getting on for 40 years old, they look so modern.

Just imagine a full set of these around the table - very chic!

Another basket is finished, this time I got carried away with a seaside/ship theme.

Something a bit different, I've really enjoyed making this one.

An empty workshop

It took us virtually all weekend, but the garage and workshop are empty. The studio is now overflowing with surplus furniture, things that we couldn't bear to put out of the way and into storage at the yard.

It's amazing what you find when you're clearing out, stuff we'd completely forgotten about. We found some terrific bits and pieces buried under mountains of other stuff. A great 1950's floor standing anglepoise lamp, several pretty cane and rush chairs, but best of all this chair that we bought at auction in 2006!

It is a design by Ernest Gimson from 1902 called the "Pass" chair. I just love it. Every part of it shows the marks of hand working. Look at the pressure marks where the back legs were steam bent and shaped:

And the tool marks on the back of the splats:

Can't wait to start work on it now, rediscovering it was like meeting an old friend after a 10 year break! There are more photos posted on our photostream at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16014602@N05/sets/72157623507493103/

The Hans Wegner Wishbone Chair

I love these chairs, but they are so difficult to do. Mr Wegner was a brilliant designer, but I often wonder if he ever actually put a seat into one of his chairs especially the ones that have this rush pattern weave! Tension is so critical as is cramming in as many coils as possible, it is the one seat weaving job that is hard on the hands. This particular chair is an original 50's/60's oak version, so has a lovely patina. It had been re-woven once before, but because it was done in the wrong material and pattern it had sagged badly, this is what it looked like.

Here it is now.

It goes home tomorrow. Now I go back to more cane panels, a footstool, some drop-in Magistretti rush seats and the Davenport of course.

Danish furniture everywhere

It had to happen, guess it must be the 40 year generation gap thing, but at last simple form, style and beauty is back in fashion with a vengeance! We started noticing it about 5-7 years ago, more 50's and 60's Danish furniture was turning up at the workshop for "revival" and re-seating, usually with apologies from the owner for it not really being "a true antique", (can you believe it!). Many pieces were the wonderfully thoughtful, sinuous designs of Hans Wegner chiefly made by Carl Hansen - true classics and a joy to restore. We love it, when you start with something that was always exceptional but now age worn and weary, then inevitably after a little TLC you end with something spectacular, it's truly satisfying work.

The trickle of Danish furniture has almost turned into a flood, but the best part about it is that the majority of people wanting to preserve these iconic pieces are getting younger, hooray! A whole new generation with an appreciation of good solid design and craftsmanship, perhaps we'll be kept busy for a while yet. I did finally finish the huge Danish table top yesterday, only the 8 foot sideboard to do now....and then the chairs.....