Obs 129: More seating than you can shake a stick at
Edge Day edition: 1,017 sofas, chairs, credenza, etc.
BUSY WEEKEND FOR FURNITURE: Many auctions, more items… massive specialization (severity)—but first, some…
Housekeeping:
I launched a podcast on my DARK HEALTH newsletter SNAKE SUPER HEALTH—the first ep. covers intermittent and extended fasting:
Listen to above or on Spotify HERE. If you’re curious about the pod/premise: think a literature review on wellness, lifting, woo-woo, raw milk, the like.
I have an essay (about Paris) appearing in the i-D / Substack ZINE that came out yesterday—here’s the vid announcement. Shoulder to shoulder with great writers, many on this platform. Subscribe to the mag ahead of time to read, I believe it’ll be out this weekend on ID’s Substack.
I edited and wrote much of the new A24 zine, PAIN IS TEMPORARY (shop link) that companions their film The Smashing Machine:
Conceived it as a sort of outsider lifting/MMA zine from 2000, the kind that Mark Kerr might read at the gym. It was the best and most fun project I’ve worked on professionally. I can’t overstate the thrill—very thankful to Perrin, Margaret, Shayan, Kurt. More photos:
Beloved Gowanus wine bar Liar Liar’s first Substack dispatch is live and is an Italy travel doc… it is vibrantly written and brimming with wine knowledge (not surw what wine is) and lore and straight up recs for all of Italy. Check it out.
Retail Corner: Coke Bottle suitcase?
While this newsletter is POWERED by vintage and auctions, there’s no anti-retail stance here. It’s as important: not everything can be hunted for; not everything should be old. Today’s retail pick… what about this single wine bottle case by Rimowa? Very good, sturdy, deeply ostentatious. Like a Pelican case, but better. IMO put a Mex Coke in there. But someone, somewhere reading this right now has worked too hard this month and should reward themselves with the above.
Obs 129: The Seating Five
Observer: The BEST furniture available on auction THIS WEEK.
Item, location, price now, end date: discussion, value.
Swedish Corbusier worship?
This Arne Norell sofa, £240, ending Tuesday, in Essex (Crass, Nitzer Ebb, Depeche Mode, Eddie and the Hot Rods) is a sofa between eras: 1920s Paris and 1965 or so Brazil. Re the latter: the pervert latches holding in the cushions, and the ornamental, near gaudy legs, what with the the off-shade divots… set against the 1980s Corbu-style cushion geometry. Are the two really that different?
No. Norell was Swedish, and passed in 1971, well ahead of the prevert furniture… so many epochal items he produced in the 1950s. much of his work is Nordic… shapes from the 1920s and ‘30s, gusseting them up, organic materials, detail:
The production house responsible for the chair in the auction is Norell Møbel AB, which he founded; it produced a lot of his stuff but not all. Norell’s work is super fascinating—very ahead of its time. There’s his armchair for Coja—geometry resembles the Faye Toogood/HEM puffy lounger. There are a number of franky accessible other designs (on Dibs), like this Safari chair (all black; Nordic designers LOVE safari chairs; the black is so deeply minimal) and this two-seater sofa that has a severe 1974 French/Detroit office aesthetic.
Along with the Norell, the best items available in the Essex auction are this Joe Colombo card table—a favorite I have written about before in my designer profile, and which is only kind of technically available in the States. As in, one is on 1stDibs, priced at market rate, with shipping only a cool $1,015.21. Also in this auction: two beautiful Arts and Crafts chairs, a desk that is a sculpture, and other even more iconic and otherwise ignored items, as well as canonical ones, which are curated with precision and taste in full after the jump.
Big font—the newsletter below contains about exactly 127 curated pieces of design i.e. furniture and smalls (kitchen stuff, glassware, the like) across all spectra: seating, sofas, credenzas, lamps, vases, desks, storage, a settee, cig cases, the single best auction for sofas I have seen since March (2025)… with items beginning in the 1924 until 2005 ish—all of which are worth buying or knowing about.
A more granular description of what will follow: severe leather and suede sofa bumper crop (De Sede, Vico, the like) comprising the 1970s and ‘80s—think anywhere between the set design in Scarface or Dead Ringers—a set of adornments and gifts (cig cases; Van Cleef and Arpels… they made cig cases?) the most futuristic and forward-thinking the designer of the late 1800s (hint he lives in Grand Rapids Michigan; if you’re a serious design head then 1885 to you is only 30 years in the past), the best coffee table, and conference table ever from an architect; a two-level coffee table in rosewood that looks like it’s made of steel… Hans Wegner’s best piece—I gasped when I saw it—as well as a rocking chair that would dominate any photo shoot it’s in. And, as always, James Bond furniture, Italian contract killer furniture, items mis-listed and therefore below value on auction, collectibles, below-the-radar deals and more.
