In search of the perfect fabric: Kvadrat

Just the other day, a reader asked for more information about the upholstery fabric used on a pair of Jens Risom C140 "Playboy chairs" in a 2012 post, and I realized that it's been a while since I mentioned textiles.

One of the most challenging aspects of vintage furniture restoration is choosing a fabric that is appropriate to the period. Finding a catalog that tells you what was used on the original is a godsend, and discovering that the fabric...or even something very similar...is still in production is nothing short of a miracle.

Kvadrat is a leading Danish manufacturer of design textiles. Founded in 1968, the company has supplied leading architects and designers with fabric for their projects for decades. Their first and most iconic fabric was Hallingdal 65, which many consider a perfect choice for mid-century restorations.

Hallingdal 65 by Kvadrat
circa50.com

In 2012, Kvadrat celebrated Hallingdal 65. Numerous designers submitted projects using the fabric in fun and creative ways, demonstrating the versatility of the product. Here are a few that caught my eye.

Fredrikson Stallard - Hallingdal table
kvadrat.dk

David Taylor - Darlings
kvadrat.dk

Philippe Madouin - Hardie stools
kvadrat.dk

Ionna Vautrin - Zoo
kvadrat.dk

Katrin Sonnleitner - Cocco
kvadrat.dk

Jean-Baptiste Fastrez - Quetzacoalt
kvadrat.dk

Pronunciation Guide

Let the recovering begin!

My SIL...abetted by Grandson #1 pounding on my door yelling "Grammo, Grammo" as loudly as he could... rousted me out of a perfectly pleasant sleep yesterday to take me shopping for upholstery supplies.

After my ill-fated attempt to sign up for an upholstery class at a local community college, I found some excellent online tutorials and decided to teach myself. However, setting me up in my own upholstery workshop had taken a backseat to moving into the new store, but when we got another pair of Kofod-Larsen chairs the other day, I mentioned (OK, whined) that I really needed a pneumatic staple gun and air compressor before I recovered the seats...hence, today's shopping trip to a local upholstery supply store.

$400 later, my SIL unloaded a top-of-the-line Fasco stapler, a 1.3 horsepower, 4 gallon, twin tank Hitachi air compressor with a maximum psi of 135, a 25-foot coiled hose and my very own rubber mallet and staple puller into my living room. I must say it all looks lovely with the 5 bolts of upholstery fabric that were already there.

He thinks he's found the perfect work table for me...with a red formica top, no less...and now the hunt is on for an industrial sewing machine, preferably a Consew Model 226.

We started making plans to clean out and renovate my workshop, which has been a catch-all this past year for overflow from the shop/Etsy store, such as odds 'n' end lamps, pottery and refinishing supplies...plus their bicycles and a couple of infant carseat bases, which they're supposed to post on Craigslist.

Today's purchases marked the end of procrastination and committed us to actually following through on the upholstery idea. When I said, "I guess I need to learn to upholster now, huh?" my SIL replied, "Yeah, unless you want to find a bill for $400 on your doorstep."

My first project will be the Kofod-Larsen seats, which will be so much easier than the last ones I did with a hand stapler. The next item of business will be a cute little swivel rocker that has been languishing in the workshop for a while, followed by a chair we've had since our antique mall days. Ironically, someone contacted us about it yesterday, so it may sell before I have a chance to recover it.

My new air compressor...all  60 pounds of it.  Huh? That's portable?

My pneumatic stapler, hose, mallet and staple puller make me legit.

We got another pair of Kofod-Larsen chairs like these.
The backs have already been refinished.
Now I need to recover the seats.

#2 Project: A cute little swivel rocker that will soon be orange

This will probably be #3 Project,
unless it's sold first.

James Laver's Law

James Laver (1899-1975) was a British author, museum curator and art and fashion historian. He came up with Laver's Law, an attempt to explain the cycle of fashion change and the public's changing attitude toward any style or period. Laver's Law first appeared in Taste and Fashion in 1937.

While Laver was attempting to explain people's perception of clothing styles, his observations seem to hold equally true for furniture.

But if you're too impatient to wait for a piece to come back into vogue, an upholstery change could infuse it with new life.

From wikipedia.org

Laver's Law

Current Style...................................Smart

1 year after its time........................Dowdy

10 years after its time....................Hideous

20 years after its time.................Ridiculous

30 years after its time...................Amusing

50 years after its time .....................Quaint

100 years after its time................Romantic

150 years after its time.................Beautiful

That being said, some things are just WRONG.  Design Addict had a great thread about unfortunate upholstery choices for mid-century pieces a while back. Here are some of the highlights...but be sure to check out the entire thread for design gaffes owners have made in the name of  "updating" by putting the fabric du jour on an older piece.

Wanting your Saarinen Womb Chair to blend into that traditional living room?
 Wrong!
pegboardmodern.com

 Involving an Eames rocker in your Southwestern/Traditional/MCM identity crisis?
Wrong!
designaddict.com

Hoping your Finn Juhl chair will sit demurely and pretend to be shabby chic?
Oh, so very wrong!
designaddict.com

Pssst...It's called gimp.

And if you see it on your piece of mid-century furniture, it has probably been recovered at some time in the past.

Gimp is a flat decorative trim or braid that conceals upholstery fastening points, such as staples or tacks, and it was almost never the trim chosen by mid-century designers. Instead, they favored less fussy piping, double welt cord or no trim at all.

Scroll gimp
fabricfarms.com

French gimp
bandmupholstery.com

Gimp application
modhomeec.com

Piping
flickr.com - Michael's Upholstery

Double welt cord
flickr.com - Michael's Upholstery

I think she had some work done.

The most comfortable chair we've ever had in the store, hands down, is this Milo Baughman-esque cantilevered armchair. Unfortunately she wasn't the prettiest chair we've ever had in the store. The chrome was in great shape, the upholstery was like new...but she just didn't have much wow-factor dressed all in beige. As much as we loved this well-preserved old gal, we decided it was time for a facelift.

Chrome cantilevered armchair with original upholstery

So we ordered some jazzy cayenne red nubby bouclé fabric called "Boom Zeal" by Momentum from winterbeachmodern and dropped the chair off at our go-to upholsterer Larry. Here she is now, looking like a movie star.

What a difference a few nips and tucks make!

Major cover-up

For quite some time, we've been looking for a reliable, fast, talented local upholsterer...and it's harder to find all these attributes in one person than you might think. My son-in-law has decided to send me (and maybe my daughter) to upholstery classes in January. The plan is for us to do all our own in-house reupholstery, and in our spare time, we'll do small jobs for the public.

If you live in the Baltimore, Maryland, area, I envy you. In my constant quest for fabric, I visited winterbeachmodern, one of my favorite online fabric sources, and found a link to Modern Chair Restoration...and a person who is everything we desire in an upholsterer and more, with the exception of being 1,400 miles away.

As the name of the company implies, owner Katherine specializes in restoring mid-century modern chairs and other small pieces. She began upholstering for herself, family and friends 30 years ago but developed a particular affinity for Danish Modern after living in Denmark for a year in the late 1990s. She works closely with the owners of Home Anthology in Catonsville, Maryland, a shop specializing in mid-century modern design. She does work for them, meeting customers, showing swatches and talking about the possibilities for various pieces. She even goes on fabric-buying trips with them. (That's the "and more" I was talking about!)

She sums up how she feels about her work by saying, "I pretty much just love making ratty stuff look great again. It's so satisfying." Take a look at some of her amazing work. Great it most assuredly is!

Danish recliner lounge chair - Before

Danish recliner lounge chair - After

Danish recliner lounge chair - Close-up

Tall back teak lounge chair - Before and After

Tall back teak lounge chair - Close-up

Danish Modern lounge chair - Before

Danish Modern lounge chair - After

Danish Modern lounge chair - Close-up

Executive office chair by Vincent Cafiero for Knoll - Before and After

Executive office chair by Vincent Cafiero for Knoll - Close-up

For me, the real treat was seeing the transformation of this Hans Wegner CH23, which was completely rewoven. Katherine did a phenomenal job but admits it's very hard on the hands.

Hans Wegner CH23 chair - Before

Hans Wegner CH23 chair - After

Hans Wegner CH23 chair - Close-up

Pssst...they're called antimacassars.

My mother loved them. Whenever she had a piece of furniture reupholstered, she'd have several spares made, so she'd always have some to use when she sent a pair to be dry cleaned. We either were really messy kids, or she was unnaturally worried about soil. At any rate, we simply called them "arm and headrest covers," but the correct name is antimacassar.

Originally they were crocheted or knitted, but in the twentieth century, furniture manufacturers began offering them in matching upholstery fabric. They come in a fitted style, which goes around the end of the arm, or a napkin style, which lies across the arm or the back.

The name derives from the use of macassar oil in hair dressings during the Victorian era. Women wanted to protect their furniture from this oil, so the antimacassar was born. You could say that the antimacassar was the forerunner of Scotchgard™ and other chemical fabric treatments, which hadn't yet been developed.

I suppose the use of antimacassars is better than leaving your furniture encased in plastic, but having grown up with my mother's almost obsessive attachment to them, I now prefer to just lay in a good supply of foam upholstery cleaner and take my chances.

From onlinefurnituredesign.com

Antimacassars
aspireauctions.com

aspireauctions.com

Milo Baughman sofa
ebay.com - webstersattic

Edward Wormley sofa
uship.com (shipped by webstersattic)

aspireauctions.com

In the store: Lonnnnnnnnnnnng and cool

We sold so much furniture Labor Day weekend that we literally only had about a half dozen pieces left on the floor. We've been restocking all week, and now the store is bursting with new merchandise.

Some of the pieces are impressively large. There's an architectural bench/coffee table that expands from 55" to a massive 96" length. It's so big when it's extended that we had to photograph it outside. Then there's a Danish credenza with a smoked glass front that's a sleek 83" long. And if stretching out on funky plush is your thing, we have the most comfortable sofa on earth in a gold and brown stripe trimmed in walnut and metal. Finally, we have a long, beautiful RCA stereo with a design that's very Brasilia-esque. Oh...and I almost forgot...a Drexel Precedent dining set. The table extends to 100".

Take a look...and check back tomorrow for more.

Bench at 55" length

Bench fully extended to 96"

83" credenza with smoked glass doors

88" plush sofa

RCA stereo, 61.5" long

Drexel Precedent dining set extended to 100"

Ah, the vagaries of style

In 1951, the A. H. McIntosh & Co Ltd of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, produced their first "modern" furniture. By the late 50s, they were the first company outside Scandinavia to mass produce modern teak furniture.

We were lucky to pick up a beautiful McIntosh dining set recently, but somewhere along the way...probably in the late 1980s or early 1990s, by the looks of it...someone had "updated" the seat upholstery. I"m sure, in its day, it was considered a very pretty polyester blend fabric, although I'm not sure it was ever an appropriate choice for these sleek Swedish-inspired chairs. Now the print just looks big and gaudy and twenty years out-of-style.

We decided to replace it with some very subdued vintage fabric that we found at an estate sale last month. Here are the chairs, returned to a more classic version of themselves. I'll show them to you with the table when we move them to the store.

Pssst...It's called the Wyzenbeek rating.

If you're planning to recover a piece of mid-century furniture, do you know how do determine the textile's durability? Upholstery fabric should be as tough as it is attractive, and there's a way to tell if it is.

Early-20th-century inventor Andrew Wyzenbeek devised a method to test fabric strength. He invented a machine that tests how many double rubs (considered one complete motion back and forth) a swatch of fabric can withstand before tearing. The rating should be on the fabric's label.

For residential use, 15,000-20,000 double rubs is usually an adequate Wyzenbeek durability rating. For heavier use, such as an office chair gets, 40,000 double rubs is usually required. An extremely high rating of 100,000 would be necessary for a textile receiving constant use by many people, such as in a theater or a school.

As you can see below, most good quality upholstery-weight fabrics in mid-century patterns have a durability rating that far exceeds requirements for normal home use. Before you buy bargain fabric, however, be sure to check the tag or bolt, or ask a store employee what the Wyzenbeek rating is, in order to be sure it suits your purpose.

From findarticles.com and encompassarch.com

Checker Split by Alexander Girard - 51,000 double rubs
maharam.com

Design 9297 by Josef Hoffmann - 23,000 double rubs
maharam.com

Dot Pattern by Charles and Ray Eames - 63,000 double rubs
maharam.com

Geometri by Verner Panton - 42,000 double rubs

Pavement by George Nelson - 40,000 double rubs
maharam.com

Vases by Hella Jongerius - 100,000 double rubsmaharam.com

Pronunciation Guide