Snake Auction Observer 078: The T-shirt theory of buying furniture; five prime-tier cheap designer couches, Italy and France

The theory: We must all get loose and BMF. Plus deals and auction hits: The best mirror ever made (that is a loud mirror), all-time Italian, a 1920s chair that spanks

This week: nice and warm, spring is more or less here, I think I am cooked on my winter parka, it is probably too warm out for the rest of the year to wear it again, I have been wearing a Psycho Active sweatshirt to and from the gym (and on sprints) pretty much every day since February, and it is holding up well, and I finally got a sandwich at the gentrified grocery store across from my raw m. pickup in the [REDACTED] neighborhood of Brooklyn, but they were very light on the roast beef. More germanely, the best auctionable stuff comes in this week quite slim, meager even, until about Thursday, but it is laden and generous at the end. Really good stuff, including what is, to me, the best mirror there is (smokes the Sottsass; going for $1,000 atm), a handful, like last week, of very undervalued and well-designed (and important) sofas/couches (all under $800, most local to New York), a rumination on the difference between prime-tier and God tier furniture, and a case made for treating designer furniture like a T-shirt. of the week and is all laden towards the end. As well:” But first,

Housekeeping:

• Nice Breakfast Club interview with Eric Adams, The interviewer is so adversarial and detailed. Rare to see something like this. We elected a vegan police officer as mayor of New York…

• Yuki Tsunoda is racing well this year and the dream scenario (and the logical one) is that he joins Ferrari in some capacity in 2026. Will they get it together and face their destiny?

• I can confirm there is a lemur on the loose in Clinton Hill. If anyone sees him, let me know. I don’t know the owners or have any advice but am just personally interested in this story.

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Auctions:

Pearsall sofa, Ill.: Tues… A moment of silence for simple navy sofas with muted dimensions, of which this Adrian Pearsall is one of the most definitive; I discussed this aesthetic in Dwell the other week with Dan Nosowitz; one of the less pored over points of the (great, thorough) story being, among other things, that D2C brands making inferior products have settled on MCM because, from a production standpoint, it’s been dominant aesthetic in American design.

This has been unpacked to some extent in earlier newsletters here: because MCM was (overall) an American movement, and lots of stuff was made here, both by bigger producers and knockoff/inspired-by makers, there is plenty of it around. Pearsall himself grew up near Ithaca… the overwhelming availability of this style is also what is behind the rise (over the past few years) of foreign-looking furniture… French and Italian items from the same era (or after) that have different points of view on materials and angles (not minimal, or not spare), and which therefore look more novel… but they are also more novel because not as many pieces came over here…

Pearsall was the king of the flat couch, simple itchy sofas that give some credence to Danish items from the 1950s… this couch itself is a useful donkey (to use the Lawrence Wright turn of phrase) in explaining the difference between the disappointing/deceitful sofas described in Dan’s story and what the companies are actually trying to appeal to… or, perhaps, what many Americans still very much want. This is a pro-wild-ass furniture newsletter. But not everyone wants a crazy couch that beats ass. So this one stands out as humble, quiet, perhaps not very exciting.. but also ideal. In many ways perfectly and simply designed. (To be sure, it’s from the ‘70s, which shows up in the metal chrome legs, also debatably the use of rosewood)… in some ways it’s a great and alternate approach to old meets new. The overly charitable reading is crediting these D2C companies for designing their stuff after something good. But looking at something like this, one gasps at the gulf between two things that are the same in name only. The hope is that these dogshit made of particle board sofas don’t get Americans soured on simple, mid-modern design. But if they do, more for the rest of us. This lot has been listing forever; a pair of chairs runs maybe $600; a sofa, $1,000; part of a very slim Jasper auction. Priced high at $2,400, but not bad compared to what’s new.

Mod oversized lightbulb, Ill: Tues… I’ve never seen a gated lightbulb before, or, that is to say, one with some backing; this item, with a cage or otherwise, is one of my favorite pieces, for sentimental reasons (I got a good one early on in my furniture amassment) and also because it is one of those really split-second design decisions (“let’s make a lightbulb, but big”) that is executed correctly and runs as a nice counter to our aesthetic age which is so reliant on getting it right in a meeting. Sometimes you just have to let the lightbulb guy cook. One of these sold for under $500 a couple years ago, again this is a Jasper item getting relisted. The gating (I like calling it gating) makes it a bit more industrial… I do like the idea of writing up a lightbulb every single time it comes up in auction, but I likely will not. $650

Perriand/Mounique Jumo lamp, Denmark/in-house shipping: Wed… some issues with the listing here, there is a lot of debate on these lamps, whether Charlotte Perriand herself designed them; the lore on these (and a couple others) by Jumo is that they were done by André Mounique for Jumo, the French company, and selected by Perriand…. which works as this is a quite conservative, and nicely dull item, more plain than her other output. It’s very conservative and dialed in, which are design decisions that work for lots of people (esp. CP) but which I don’t think translate best to lighting. Why? Because a lamp’s function is so direct (turn on and emit light) that its design can be anything. Or even should. None of any of CP’s (alleged…whatever) Jumo lamps have sold in the past few years, not even the 600, which is probably the best one. $600, part of a meager Jasper auction.

I’ve founda number of all-time pieces this week, including the statement mirror to end all statement mirrors, dirt cheap Italian plastic pop design, local to New York, a handful of undervalued couches (all local, many canon), a set of chairs, rare Hermès; an avant sofa that keeps getting more affordable… context and prices after the jump.