F*ck, Marry, Kill: CLASSIC CHAIRS EDITION

Your favorite chairs ... like you've never seen them before

Welcome to Designheads first game show or talk show or podcast or whatever we should call it:

Fuck, Marry, Kill: CLASSIC CHAIRS EDITION !!

Our editors, David and Juliyen, sat down on Zoom and revealed way too much about themselves while discussing the sex appeal and emotional depth of famous designer chairs. Do you agree with our takes? Which chairs would you F, M, K?

ROUND 1

David  

I feel like there’s a joke here about holes. But I dunno if we want to go that direction. [laughs]

I know Wendell Castle was an expert woodworker, which feels very much like a “marriage material” thing, but his chair also kinda looks like a sex toy. 

Juliyen  

Not gonna lie, his chair does look a little phallic.

David  

Yeah, all of these chairs are a littleeee…

Juliyen  

They're definitely all fuckable.

David  

What’s that joke? “Everything's a dildo, if you try hard enough?”

Juliyen  

[laughs]

Okay, I’m gonna go off vibes then.

The chair on the right, the Umeda chair, seems like it might cut me emotionally pretty deeply, maybe it’s the thin, sharp edges. It also feels like it could be a little shallow. So I might have to kill that chair. 

These other chairs feel a little more soft and warm, like there’s gonna be a nice, big hug waiting for me when I walk in the door after a long day. I feel like the chair in the middle especially is giving me that vibe, so I’m gonna marry the middle chair and fuck the Castle chair.

David  

If we're thinking about ease of killing, the last chair feels the easiest to kill. It's cute, but it’s probably the – 

Juliyen  

Flimsiest?

David  

Yeah, you could probably smash it with a hammer. But this Marc Newson chair — It's riveted steel or something, like it’s made the same way an airplane is made. I think I would marry that chair. It's gonna take care of you.

Juliyen  

Yeah, there's something about it that feels caring. It’s definitely an earth sign.

David  

This is SUCH a subjective game. Like when you’re playing with celebrities or real people — everyone has their association and own hot take. It really depends on the context here, especially once you get away from physical appearance and you’re just thinking about the overall vibe. 

THE RESULTS

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ROUND 2

David

This is going to be easy for me — Max Lamb is my ultimate design crush.

Juliyen  

I do feel like there are definite strong vibes here.

David  

Okay, what's your gut reaction?

Juliyen  

Okay, I’m definitely personifying the chairs here, but I feel like the Ron Arad chair on the left has a lot of secrets or a lot of intriguing mystery to them, you know, just the way the chair stacks like a series of drawers – there’s a lot up their sleeve. I think I'm gonna fuck that chair. 

The chair in the middle, the Max Lamb chair, feels really well put together. It feels very… sophisticated. That is a sexy, confident person right there. I wanna be the bad boy from the other side of the tracks and elope with that chair and run away to Greece or something. 

I’m gonna have to kill the Gerrit Rietveld chair — it’s not giving me anything.

David  

Again, it’s the easiest to kill. I know this probably isn’t true, but I kinda feel like I would break it just by sitting on it the wrong way. 

And just because Max lamb is like my favorite designer of all time, I would marry that chair (and him) in a heartbeat.

This Ron Arad chair feels a little scary, like something’s going to get caught in there. But there’s that element of danger – it’s sort of BDSM-y. Danger and excitement and pain.

Juliyen  

Like, there might be ropes in one of those boxes.

David  

There might be ropes, or you never know — it might transform into something else. That chair is gonna get pretty freaky. I feel like it has a mind of its own. 

Juliyen  

This is making me think: should we maybe marry the reliable chair — the Rietveld then? I feel like that chair is consistent. Opposite of the Ron Arad chair, I feel like it has nothing to hide.

David  

But now we’re getting into the philosophy of marriage and what the point of it is. Like, maybe you want the chair that you feel the safest with — the chair that truly sees you as a person.

Juliyen  

Like the yellow chair is the only one that's like giving like warm energy you know?

David  

This is such like a psychological experiment. It really just comes down to our personal outlooks. 

THE RESULTS

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ROUND 3

David

Ok last round — we’ve got a Ray and Charles Eames chair, a classic Panton chair, and this flower chair by Masanori Umeda.

Juliyen  

So when you picked these out, were you thinking about your answers already?

David  

I hadn’t really picked out my favorites, but obviously there was a Max Lamb chair in there. I was more thinking about similar silhouettes and I felt kind of bad picking any contemporary designers, beyond like super famous ones, at least for now. 

Juliyen  

What's your take on these?

David  

I mean, I want to marry the Masanori Umeda, the yellow chair. I don't know — it's just such a good chair. It’s comfortable and cute and combines a lot of things that I like in a chair. 

This might seem like a hot take, and with all respect and acknowledgement of the influence of Ray and Charles Eames, but I just don't personally like Eames or Eames-style furniture that much. Maybe because it’s just so ubiquitous … The funny thing is that I’m sitting in a knock-off Eames chair right now that my friend gave me when I moved last week and didn’t have any furniture. 

But I would kill the Eames chair, instantly. It’s just not my favorite.

And I obviously would fuck this Panton chair. Going back to the Wendell Castle chair — this one’s just very sleek and sexy and feels like I would see it in a dark moody bar, like I’d walk in and see a bunch of these sexy chairs. It looks a bit like latex too, like it’s covered in black latex.

Juliyen  

It does feel like it's in a latex suit, which kind of scares me a little, not gonna lie. [laughs]

David  

Maybe this is where we fundamentally disagree. [laughs]

Juliyen  

My only experience with latex suits is American Horror Story to be fair. [laughs]

David  

Yeah, I'm super claustrophobic — like there’s nothing sexually exciting about latex to me but in my mind I always associate it with sex. 

Juliyen  

Yeah, that’s a fair take.

For me, I’m gonna have to marry the Eames chair. The vibe looks … Well, is it comfortable? I feel like there's different ways you can sit on this chair and I like variety in my life. I feel like I won't get bored with that chair. I can feel like I can sit one way and read a book and sit another way and work on my laptop or sit another way and sip some tea. I don’t know what the hole is for, but I feel like I could have a side table by the chair and make use of it. It gives me a lot of variety and I like that in a chair. 

The Panton chair scares me too, like I said —  also I've sat in a bootleg Panton chair and it wasn't very comfortable. So I have to kill the Panton chair — I like to be comfortable. 

And this yellow chair looks very exciting. I feel like I’d fuck that chair. And it wouldn't be like a one night stand …  we'd have a summer fling, like in a movie. Maybe in a foreign country somewhere. And I would never forget it. 

David  

This is super revealing, about your personality. [laughs]

Juliyen  

Yeah, I wonder if I'm revealing too much of myself right now.

David  

That was great. That's all the chairs I have for today.

THE RESULTS