This chair is one of a matched set of three. Three of these chairs originally came on to the antique market from the original owner, all upholstered in rare, early Saran fabric. The original owner kept the fourth chair, which he had reupholstered.

The use of Saran on this example distinguishes it as a rarity; very few such chairs have survived. In addition, the early date of manufacture is indicated by the “Patent Pending” embossed into the cast aluminum “antler” on the underside of the chair. Note too that the antlers on this example are inserted into the frame. On later chairs the antlers were bolted to the outside edges of the frame.

Saran itself is a remarkable innovation in chair upholstery. Charles Eames first used it when he designed stereo loudspeakers for the Stephens Tru-sonic company in 1955. As part of the process of designing the Tru-Sonic speakers Charles asked a number of questions. It was fundamental to the Eames design process to ask questions, so that all of the “purposes” of the design at hand could be fulfilled. Eames asked the Tru-sonic engineers the purpose of hi fi speaker “grill cloth.”He was told that the only purpose of the grill cloth was to keep people from poking their fingers through the delicate paper speaker cones. Eames noted that the fabric used on most speakers was a dust collector. He researched fabrics for the Stephens job and adapted a new plastic cloth, named “Saran” after the type of polyester, to the grills. The Saran not only did not collect dust, like cloth typically does, its plastic surface repelled dust.In 1958 when working on the Eames Aluminum Group designs, the first Eames designs to have upholstery fabric as their essence, Eames again turned to Saran for the first production models. With his commitment to maximum customer service, Eames may not have been the first chair designer in history to recognize that regular woven fabric on a chair is a dust collector, but he certainly took that into account.

And with so much fabric on one chair, Eames attended to this detail.

Within a short period of time the Eames Office observed that Saran did not hold up well to the weight of sitters. The Eames Office devised what is still seen on Eames Aluminum Group chairs today, a naugahyde sandwich, with multiple welded seams holding fiberthin padding.

Here in a series of photographs, we celebrate the details of this early example of a landmark line of chairs. Naugahyde was not a random choice by the Eames Office. The Eames Office wanted to supply customers with chairs that weren’t “dust collectors” and Naugahyde was a good, dust repelling material for that purpose.

Saran came in two colors, a grey hue, and a blue hue.

This chair has the grey Saran.