The design lover’s ultimate easy chair
Two titans of the British crafts scene have collaborated to create a most covetable chair. Nick Vinson reports
Connolly is a luxury brand that creates the lustrous leather that upholsters the seats in the House of Lords, as well as the interiors of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Jaguars. Edward Barnsley Workshop is a boutique woodworking studio and educational centre with a history steeped in the Arts and Crafts movement. When these two companies come together to create a new piece of furniture, design aficionados cannot help but get very excited.
For London Craft Week, Connolly is introducing a leather version of Edward Barnsley Workshop’s Easy Chair upholstered in Connolly’s signature Vaumol leather in a classic tan, complementing perfectly the honey-toned English oak structure.
The Easy Chair, with its curved low shape, is based on sketches by Edward Barnsley (1900-1987), a leading British furniture maker of the 20th century and a pioneer behind the Crafts Council. His sketches from the 1950s were not realised at the time but developed more recently by James Ryan, head of design at Edward Barnsley Workshop, run today by an educational trust to preserve unique skills and pass them on to future generations of furniture makers. This Easy Chair is the third version of the design, which was previously finished in La Cuona’s wool and linen bouclé with Soane Britain, using rattan.
Connolly dates from 1878 and was first a shoe repairer and then a harness and saddle repairer, before setting up as a currier or leather finisher, developing a technique to colour leather for coach hoods. When the first automobiles were built it was Connolly that found a way to finish leather that did not crack — and upholstery leather was born. Connolly’s new leather went in the first Rolls-Royce in 1904 and on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s original Barcelona chair in 1929, as well as the first production of the Eames office chairs, the seating in the Houses of Parliament and the desks and chairs in the British Library.
“This collaboration represents the past but also the future,” Isabel Ettedgui, the creative director and owner of Connolly, says. She joined the business in 1995, and her husband, Joe, bought it in 2000, amplifying its credentials as a British luxury brand. As such, the collaboration with Edward Barnsley Workshop, equally concerned with quality and the promotion of craft skills, is a perfect fit.
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The Easy Chair joins Connolly’s 2018 Club Chair and the 2020 Topped Oak Stool.
From May 12, 4 Clifford Street, London W1S 2LG. connollyengland.com; barnsley-furniture.co.uk
