Last week, my post on haute femme chairs (link here) received positive reviews, so I thought I’d do another story on fun chairs! (Okay fine…the positive reviews were just from my friends, but still. They count.) So this week I thought I’d share some more fabulous and zany renditions of traditional chair designs. Yay!

David Bromstad (HGTV's Color Splash, Design Star season 1 winner) costarring with his white haute femme Rococo chair in his weekly Design Star vlog. Whatever David Bromstad is seen with, it must be right.

We defined haute femme as bringing back the romanticism and plush comfort of eras past and adding whimsical modern twists. Perhaps the first person to introduce this idea was Italian designer Alessandro Mendini in 1978 when he came out with his Proust chair (Poltrona di Proust) as a part of his Redesigns Furniture series. He believed that modern design was running out of new ideas and turned to redecorating classics as a solution. Here, he painted a Louis XV chair with imagery that evokes the work of 19th century writer Marcel Proust.

Proust chair by Alessandro Mendini

Anthropologie, known for its artsy, soulful aesthetic, carries upholstered furniture that follows Mendini’s vision.

Top: Louisa Settee $2,498 Bottom: Striped Kilim Sofa $2,498

Cleo Chair, Katsina $998

Josef Wingback Chair, Butterflies $1,698

Battersea Sofette, Bloom $2,998

Soren Chair, Painter's Palette $1,598

Betram Chair, Vera Bubbles $1,598

Personally, I think Mendini’s experiment became an enormous success. -Beryl