Bespoke furniture
A bespoke armchair is the smallest unit in the upholstery vocabulary and one of the most expressive. Almost every detail of a chair is a decision at design — arm style, back height, leg style, seat depth, cushion fill, cover — and almost every detail shows close-up. The line of a chair is what makes it sit right in a room; the build is what makes it last beyond its first cover.
Armchairs leave the workshop in residential and contract specifications. The same frame can take a 100% down cushion for a formal reading chair and a high-density foam cushion for a hotel lobby; the build behind the cover is the same, set out on the upholstery workshop page.
Most armchair briefs land within a handful of established forms.
The standard English club chair: low to medium back, square or scrolled arms, fixed back, single seat cushion in foam-and-feather or solid foam. Specified in clubs, hotel lobbies, libraries and private studies, where the chair will be sat on hard and read close-up. Most often covered in full-grain leather, hand-stitched, with studding or contrast piping signing the edge.
A small, curved-back chair built around a tub-shaped frame, the back and arms forming a continuous line. Tub chairs are compact and easily worked into the line of a room; they are widely specified for hotel suites, restaurant covers and private studies. The curve of the frame means the cover is cut around the radius and the front of the seat carries a contrast cord or piping detail.
A taller, more architectural cousin of the tub chair, with a curved back set on a solid frame. Bergère chairs traditionally have caned or upholstered panels on the back and arms and a generous seat cushion. Specified on period reproductions and on formal residential briefs where the chair is read as a piece of furniture rather than a soft seat.
Set on a swivel base of polished steel, brass or upholstered timber, with a return-to-centre mechanism that brings the chair back to its resting position when unweighted. Specified in pairs in front of fireplaces, around drinks tables and in residential reception rooms where the chair will see daily rotation.
Single-seat chairs sized for an alcove, a bedroom corner or beside a sofa. Lower than a club chair, often with a wing or scroll back, almost always with a cushion sized to drop into a relaxed reading posture. The cushion fill on a reading chair is usually softer than on a club chair — feather-wrapped foam or 60/40 feather-and-down is the standard specification.
Chairs are decided by line as much as by dimension. The same overall measurements can produce a tight, modern chair or a deep, traditional one depending on the arm scroll, the back angle and the cushion proportions. Drawings are reviewed at design with the brief's reference points in mind: a particular vintage chair, an existing piece in another room, a designer's sketch.
Cushion fills change how a chair sits as much as the frame does. A reading chair filled in 60/40 feather-and-down sinks deeply and reads as a piece for unhurried sitting; the same frame with a foam-cored cushion reads as more tailored and is faster to recover. The full range is set out on the upholstery fills page.
Fabric is COM-friendly; full-hide leather is calculated per frame. Curved-back chairs use more cover than rectangular ones because the cloth wraps the radius; this is resolved at the quotation stage. Fabric families, Martindale ratings and the choice between natural and performance cloths are set out on the fabrics page.
This page covers one of the piece-types built in the upholstery workshop. The broader range — sofas, armchairs, slipper and wingback chairs, dining and desk chairs, banquettes, ottomans, beds and headboards — sits under upholstered furniture. The engineering behind every piece is set out on the upholstery workshop page; the cushion fills are covered under upholstery fills, and the cover options are set out under fabrics.
