Au contraire mon frere.
Let’s not blow this out of proportion over two pieces of furniture. To put the record straight I would never feel comfortable buying knocks offs of furniture that was always intended to be premium such as a Lounge Chair, Barcelona Chair or even an Eames Group chair for that matter. I know the quality of those would be completely sub standard and I’d know just how off looking they would be, something that would bug me immensely.
But the Eames plastic/fiberglass chair range I just can’t get on board with paying £300+ per chair. Maybe that price for a complete set of four, but not individually.
They were designed with this quote in mind: “Getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least”. They were never designed to be sold for their current price, as even stated in this thread a lot of these pieces were designed to outfit schools very cheaply.
As for the manufacturing methods that is a different story and just because I get paid to be a designer my ethics most of the time don’t reflect what my disposable income is. At the end of the day I’m still a consumer with a paycheck that only goes so far. Also, IKEA has been in hot water plenty of times in it’s history over its manufacturing methods and use of forced labour, so have plenty of other brands we all pay top dollar for.