Tom Dixon’s S-Chair began life as a one-off model in the designer’s London workshop in the late 1980s. It was originally woven with recycled rubber tubes and then he used rush to cover it. In 1992 the chair was taken on by the Italian manufacturer Cappellini, who also added fixed covers in felt or leather. The chair was a great success and Dixon, a self-taught unknown designer, gained international renown. The early version in particular, where he combined steel and marsh rush, is a piece of evocative sculpture that made a huge visual impact in the minimalist interiors of the 1990s. The strongly anthropomorphic nature of the chair – the S-shape takes the form of a seated human body – was hugely appealing in an otherwise abstract, geometric space and the S-Chair quickly became a modern furniture icon.
Text: Penny Sparke
