With its elegant and retro style, La Schaise by French firm Smarin is a very innovative garden deck chair, ideal for the poolside and exteriors. It is part of a collection that will be launched in full on January 30, 2018. And even more interesting is the fact that it will be on display until September 6 at the Boutique of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Why? It’s easy to explain.
David Hockney, for many the greatest living English painter, turned 80 few days ago. A celebrated exponent of the pop art, Hockney is best known because, in the past, he mostly painted swimming pools (a painting of his from 1967 was the inspiration for director Luca Guadagnino’s movie A Bigger Splash). To celebrate him, the Centre Pompidou organised a big retrospective running until October 23, and on this occasion La Schaise was launched. On closer inspection, in fact, the deck chair by Stephanie Marin is “Hockney-universe-friendly”, as it matches perfectly David Hockney’s pop, pastel, and vivid universe.
And it’s absolutely true: the line of this small bed brings us back to the 1960s, to the atmosphere of the movie “The Graduate”.
The garden deck chair, 110 cm high and 70 cm wide, is made of two pieces (it also has a foot rest) and is realised with soft elastic straps that enable the body to find the perfect position. “It is the chair following the body, not vice-versa”. The Bauhaus heritage – the motto recalls another one, “Form follows function” – does not end here: the elastic straps are wrapped around a structure in steel tubes with a typically modernist taste. It is available in sky blue or white.
The seat, fruit of the ergonomic research directed at identifying a correct and flexible position, is the most innovative feature. The deck chairs of the new collection lead you naturally to assume a healthy posture, and are supposed to improve blood circulation and muscle tone, thanks to the flow of air between straps and fabrics.
Together with the small beds of the collection there is a disc-shaped stylised lamp (Nimbo), produced in two different heights and supported by a tripod base.
We have to wait until next year to see the rest of the collection by this firm born in 2003. Specialised in high-end furniture, Smarin realises everything by hand, with the aim of creating high-quality products with sturdy and sustainable materials.
And you? What do you think? Would Dustin Hoffman and David Hockney be happy to have one?
