I would have to say, buy real. As a designer, you should first and foremost support design. The designers and the company that PAID them to design the object. I only hope âmy workâ keeps clients coming back to hire me. If that company does not sell their product, they can not hire me again. Take Herman Miller for example, they sell Eames products. They also spend money on design in general. I want to not only support designers (dead or alive), but I want to support companies that value and PAY designers to design.
Thatâs all great, but the Eamesâ intent was never to make $600 dining chairs. History lesson on the DCW:
Initially Charles had set out to find a solution to providing affordable, comfortable furniture that could be easily mass produced. His entries into the Organic Furniture competition were designed to have the seat and backrest joined in a single âshellâ. The plywood, however, was prone to crack when bent into the sharp angles and had to be covered with upholstery. Through extensive trial and error Charles and Ray arrived at an alternate solution: create two separate pieces for the seat and backrest, joined by a plywood lumbar support, with plywood legs.
So again, which version of some of these pieces is more true to the Eamesâ ethos? The $600 chair or the $200 chair?
Here is a little video on modernica making the fiberglass chair. Interestingly enough, modernica still uses fiberglass and Herman Miller I think (I could be wrong) only uses plastic.
When I saw this video I thought, there guys need to be wearing some masks. Fiberglass is some nasty stuff. The Making of The Fiberglass Chair - YouTube
I am also confused by this statement about quality. Vitra, you could argue, is making the âoriginalsâ as they own the license together with HermanMiller. Just in PP, not FG.
Personally, I prefer PP over Fiberglass, mostly because of durability and sustainability reasons.
Out of my experience, Vitra has always top notch quality. I am a huge fan of their blend of new and old design.
Granted, with a hefty price tag. But then again, in Switzerland, you wonât see any âcheap Mexican laborersâ though. Also worth something.
Iâm really surprised by the amount of people on this forum advocating âbuy the ripoffâ.
If something is in the public domain, then by all means buy it from whomever you like. Copyright/ Patents/ Design Protection have a limited lifespan to encourage innovation by providing a temporary monopoly. Once expired it belongs to all.
But if it isnât in the public domain (and the death of the designer doesnât necessarily mean it it is) buy the ârealâ one.
Final thought- in the industrialised first world, we live in an age of abundance never before seen in history, regardless of current economic woes. Donât nickle and dime it by buying crap, buy good stuff that has value.
Itâs not that simple. The Eames chairs arenât protected by patent or copyright, which is why there are knockoffs being produced without any threat of legal action. A design or utility patent, if there were any, would have expired sometime in the 60s. And of course, the Eameses are long dead. I donât know who gets the Vitra / HM royalty checks now (Eames Demetrios maybe?), but I wouldnât say thereâs some clear moral obligation to buy a licensed one.
I know the law has been dicked around, but the original intent of copyright and patent laws was to give the original creator a limited period of exclusivity. I tend to think 20 years is fair, and with this chair we are well over 50 years, and thatâs more than fair. If someone wants to knock me off 50 years from now, you have my blessing in the archived copy of this thread.
Besides, in this case nobody produces the ârealâ thing anymore- the Modernica version is decent, but the bases arenât quite right, and the HM ones are plastic and thatâs not right at all. The ones posted by the OP arenât even knockoffs really. The seat shapes and bases are all different. They are pretty awful though, obvious clunky Chinese OEM stuff. Personally Iâd spring for better quality, regardless of perceived moral issues.
We are arguing the same point. It now comes down to value- do you buy on price only, or spend a bit more to buy something that is well made, by a manufacturer that supports designers?
Try Ebay⌠but watch out for âEames likeâ or or âeames sarinnen herman miller knollâ type adds⌠they try to mislead with the wording. Also to you Austin/Minnepolis/Raleigh people - IBM has surplus sales all the time and let go of some amazing 50s modern stuff from Saarinen/Eames/HermanMiller/Knoll for very cheap
so anyway, I bought a knock-off Burke Saarinen-like Tulip table back in the day, and I have regretted it ever since. The real thing would have cost a couple hundred more, but I didnât think I could swing it at the time and forever regretted the decision.
Go for the real thing, and even if you get sick of it, it will still have resale value.
FYI the older vintage stuff can sometimes be a little worse for wear⌠dings, scratches, rust, etc.
50âs modern nerds can geek out to some of the details on the vintage pieces however, for example I have an Eames aluminium group chair with 4 legs in the base - but they changed it to 5 later on for more stability.
Just find some old HM ones for cheap and pop the base pads off and re-glue them to the alternate location and get the eiffile legs from modernca. Thatâs what I would do. I also find good stuff when I walk around places. (I have two mustard colored ones with the stacking/locking bases) and I had a avocado green leather arm chair with swivel base, all three where found in the trash. I have also found a few neat sofas and a Knoll Bertoia diamond lounge in the trashâŚ
But to answer your question, get the real one, even if itâs one at a time. They hold their value better for resale, and itâs something that you will use everyday, and you could use everyday for the rest of your life. but I would jump on that fake RAR for seventy quid, you can save and dump that later for like 50GBP on CL
Get the real thing. If you buy a knock off, you will always have that in the back of your mind as long as you have the chair. Youâre likely not buying the chair purely for its function since you require such a specific design. If you like the chair because of the design and itâs place in design history then pay for the real deal. If you really shouldnât be spending that kind of money on a chair at this point in your life, either put off the purchase or scour the internet for a good deal on a second-hand one. I found two white Magis Chair 1s for $175 on craigslist when I was in grad school. I love a deal!