How a $7,000 Herman Miller chair became the new Rolex watch
Apr 28, 2024, 3:17 AM PDT
The first time I heard about The Chair was from a tech guy at an LCD Soundsystem show in New York City’s Queens Borough. A coworker had told him about it earlier in the week, and fueled by some espresso martinis, he’d ordered the chair for himself that same night for a cool $7,000. I later mentioned the episode to a friend, expressing disbelief at the amount someone would impulsively pay for a piece of furniture that I remembered only as “some chair that’s also at the MoMA or something.” She knew its name, the Herman Miller Eames lounge chair and ottoman, and said that she knew someone else who had one — a finance guy. Oh, and come to think of it, there was another tech guy who had it, too.
I’d stumbled into a real phenomenon — guys really do like that chair. “I’m convinced the majority of dudes wake up and go to work so they can one day afford this chair in their living room,” one Twitter/X user wrote this month in a viral post accompanied by a picture of the chair.
Midcentury modern has been in vogue for the past couple of decades, and for a certain type of design-curious guy, the Eames chair has become the must-have piece. Search interest in it has picked up in recent years, and while Herman Miller won’t disclose sales numbers, Amy Auscherman, the director of global archives and brand heritage for MillerKnoll, Herman Miller’s parent company, said she could “confidently say” it was selling more of them than ever.
Guys literally only want one thing, and it’s apparently this superexpensive leather-bound lounger. (Or one of the plethora of lower-price knockoffs.)
“The Eames chair is basically meme status,” said Joel Vanderveen, a 35-year-old from Minnesota who created a subreddit about a decade ago dedicated to all things Eames. “It’s like, ‘Hey, I’m a guy. I live by myself. I make a lot of money. I want to make my place look good for a variety of reasons. Oh, what’s this chair? I’m going to get that. I can spend that money.'”
The Eames lounge chair and ottoman was created by the 20th-century design duo Charles and Ray Eames and released by Herman Miller, now under MillerKnoll, in 1956. It’s mass-produced, but it’s not priced for the masses — a new chair and ottoman will run you $7,395, plus tax and shipping. The Eamses were dismayed by the high price point on the chair, Pat Kirkham, a professor of design history at Kingston University in London and the author of a book about the couple, told me, calling it “miserably expensive.” The pair had many designs, but the lounge chair is by far the most recognizable.
“Until the last 10 years, when people would say to me they had an Eames chair, I never knew which one they meant,” Kirkham said.
The Eames was meant to be an updated version of a 19th-century English club chair with the warm, welcoming look of a well-worn baseball mitt. And while the chair wasn’t created with a “For Dudes” stamp on it, after almost 70 years of marketing and culture, it’s developed a certain reputation.
“They weren’t modeling it as particularly male, but I think it has been advertised, promoted more with men in it,” Kirkham said.
The chair made appearances in the pages of men’s magazines in the ’60s and eventually worked its way into popular culture — it could be spotted on the sitcom “Frasier” in the ’90s.
“It’s always been interesting, if not funny, to me that the chair was featured early on in Playboy magazine as a status symbol in some ways,” Auscherman said.
You feel cool in it. You feel like you’re the boss of the house.
That status-symbol status persists. Among men of a certain age — and bank account size — the chair signifies that they “made it.” It’s classic enough to convey a sense of style, even if it’s a touch cliché. The Eames lounger is a luxury item that’s high quality and coveted, something that looks nice in person, on Instagram, or in the background of a Zoom call.
“You feel cool in it. You feel like you’re the boss of the house. And because it’s expensive, it’s aspirational because it takes up a lot of space,” Julia Mack, an interior designer in Brooklyn, New York, said.
It’s an obvious pick for men who are design-minded and for men who aren’t. Black leather, wood base, toss it in a living room or a home office, and voila, a statement piece.
“Guys can be unsure about what they want, especially when they’re bachelors, and if they know that this piece is iconic and has long-lasting cool, it’s an easy choice,” Jennifer Jones, the principal designer at Niche Interiors in San Francisco, said.
It was indeed a bachelor buy for Kyle, a 39-year-old hedge funder in Brooklyn who agreed to talk to me on the condition I omit his last name in case he sounded “douchey.” He’s wanted the Eames chair forever, and after years of seeing it on Tumblr and in design blogs, he finally bought it in 2021, right after a breakup.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination that I did kind of obsess about it, which is kind of sad and pathetic,” he told me. “But every time I went by a Design Within Reach store, I always had to stop in and sit in the chair and tell myself one day, when I make it, I’m finally going to get one of those.”
He compares it to a Rolex or a Porsche, where some people want it because it looks cool or is a status symbol, while others are “purists and absolute nut jobs” who obsess over the details. The Eames chair is one of those rare luxury goods that checks all those boxes for novices and experts alike, in his view. He appreciates the craftsmanship and knows it’s something he’ll have for a long time.
“It’s the same thing as a nice dining table or a nice couch or a piece of art on your wall, but it has some functionality,” he said.
I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination that I did kind of obsess about it, which is kind of sad and pathetic.
Zak Cole, a 36-year-old who lives in Nashville and is a managing partner at a Web3 venture studio, wasn’t worried about sounding douchey. He told me he’d intended to come off as “pretentious” in our conversation about the chair, but then I caught him while he was driving and we just had to do real talk. He used to work in production design in Los Angeles, where he’d see it used to convey a sense of refinement on sets, and he got one of his own for his home office around spring 2021. He likes the history, the quality, and the aesthetic, and it doesn’t hurt that people comment on it when they see it in the background of video calls.
“I think it’s just reminiscent of a bygone era, and a lot of people are bought into that entrepreneurial hustle mindset. And having that type of chair is something of an indicator of success,” he said. “Most everything you get nowadays is Wayfair or something like that, or Ikea. It’s all throwaway garbage. And nobody puts much care into design. It’s like everything is fast fashion, fast food, fast, fast furniture.”
Not everyone with the Eames chair has a new one, an expensive one, or even a real one. Reporting for this story, I came across a couple of guys who had inherited them — one from his grandfather in Michigan from the ’60s, another from his father in Minnesota, who’d traded it for suits from his clothing store in the ’80s. Some people had gotten them for a discount — one because he was an architect, Kyle because his ex-girlfriend knew someone who got 50% off and the breakup was amicable. Shawn Pasternak, a 31-year-old Washington researcher, bought a $1,500 knockoff last year when he moved into his one-bedroom condo. He still considers it an “aspirational adult purchase.”
“I obviously saw the $7,500 Herman Miller option, and then I saw others at various price points that looked basically functionally the same. And so for me, it wasn’t a matter of, ‘I need the most expensive model,'” he said.
None of the men I talked to could pinpoint exactly why they wanted the chair — it’s aspirational, it’s nice, it’s comfortable, though not as comfortable as the couch or a La-Z-Boy. The Eames chair seems eco-friendly, too — they’re not going to be tossing it out in two years. Some mentioned that it might be an investment piece. Many of them had gotten the chairs during or after the pandemic, at a moment when a lot of people had money to spend and nowhere to spend it and were spending an extra-large amount of time at home.
“That sort of awareness of your interiors, I think, certainly became more pervasive during the pandemic. And it also just coincided with some people having the extra money to invest in these pieces for their homes that — I mean, they’re iconic, they’re well made, and they’re heirlooms,” Auscherman said.
I would like to say it’s not an aspirational thing, and it’s not that shallow. But it probably is a little bit.
Derek Guy, a menswear writer and commentator, said he thought the Eames fandom among guys was a mix of those who are into midcentury-modern stuff and those who just want to flex. The trend broadly fits into a broader contemporary, vaguely hipster aesthetic.
“All of these things have kind of signaled either a certain kind of middle-classness, white liberal Democrat, to just be frank, or this HENRY — high earner, not rich yet — lifestyle,” Guy said. “And for many, that’s pretty aspirational. It’s a status signal.”
The ubiquity and recognizability of the Eames chair may make it less desirable to some. Consumers who are drawn to luxury items often prize scarce things, which the lounger isn’t. Loren Kreiss, a Los Angeles interior designer who has expressed distaste for the Eames chair on social media, told me he’s “totally over it.” In his view, it’s too common to warrant the high price point if it’s authentic, and if you’re getting a copycat, it’s too basic.
“We’ve seen enough Eames chairs to last 20 lifetimes,” he said. “If it’s a family heirloom or you find a vintage piece, that’s a totally different story. But if you’re just going to overspend or buy a knockoff, I’m in the ‘who cares’ camp. Say more with less.”
Young men, especially those with higher incomes, have a good amount of purchasing power. As many of them are getting married later or foregoing buying houses, they’ve also got cash to spend. Some of them are throwing their money into gambling, while others are investing in a fancy leather chair that gives off “Mad Men” vibes.
Kyle is happy with his Eames purchase overall. His new girlfriend likes it, and his dog knows to stay off it. He does have to make a conscious effort to sit in it; otherwise, he forgets. It’s not as comfy as the couch, and the idea that it would get him to read more did not pan out.
“I would like to say it’s not an aspirational thing, and it’s not that shallow,” he said. “But it probably is a little bit.”
You start dying when you stop dreaming.