The right chair will add scale, drama and verisimilitude to your doll photography. We share some of our top picks…
I pride myself on being a bit of an ace shopper – eye for a bargain, in the know on the best store to get what, and all that. However, there are two areas where my shopping expertise consistently fails me and is a regular source of disappointment.
The first is suitcases: no matter whether I buy top-of-the-range or cheap-as-can-be it never works out. Maybe the wheels drop off at first outing, the zipper doesn’t hold up, or that easy-to-spot color chosen with care in the store is just a huge embarrassment on the reclaim carousel. Then there’s the issue of size – ever a consideration which I never seem to get right. The perfect suitcase must be out there somewhere but it eludes me.
My other shopping failure is sheets – it’s hard to know what’s going to be good quality when you’re browsing in the store and you really can’t tell by scrunching through the cellophane. From very posh Frette to the clearance aisle at T J Maxx, I have yet to discover the ideal sheets – those that improve with age (they never do) and are the right fit (they never are). And forget thread counts – the higher the number can often mean the worse the material! It’s not like we’ve got some kind of odd-shaped bespoke bed nor mirrors on the ceiling for that matter, although that’s a different story.
Whoa… enough already on the luggage and bedlinen, I hear you exclaim. This is supposed to be a doll magazine, not ‘Linens en Voyage Weekly’ (and if it doesn’t exist, it should). But there is a point to my blethering on about shopping success and failures because it was this very thing that was a precursor to my doll collecting. As well as sheets and roll-alongs, my other quest has been to find the perfect chair… uh-oh, here we go again… but please bear with me, this will become relevant.
Chairs and furniture in general are a much more costly proposition to get wrong, especially if they are of the designer sort. So my first foray into collecting iconic chairs was from the Vitra range of scale model classics (see where I’m going?) Admittedly you can’t actually sit in ’em, but you can still have the pleasure of their form and style at a fraction of the cost of the originals. Although they are not cheap for something with no practical use, at least if you find somewhere down the road they’re not working for you, you can stash them at the back of a cupboard.
So once the dolls came on board, it didn’t take me long to work out that this initial passion for collecting miniature chairs could be seamlessly combined with the new one. In fact if you were to visit our sparsely furnished apartment, you’d get the distinct impression that if I collect anything it’s the odd scale-model chair. The dolls really only come out to play for photography purposes then they’re safely catalogued away in the dark in a slightly obsessive way ready for the next time.
I’ve discovered that some of the best shots of dolls can be created with just a simple backdrop and a piece of furniture – perhaps this goes with my pared-down esthetic – but I personally think that’s all you need to give a sense of scale and time.
One of my best and most versatile pieces was a suggestion of our editor, Pat Henry. A cheap plastic Barbie playline chaise resprayed to look a little more opulent – this one piece has been pressed into use for countless shoots, and it can be endlessly repainted for so many different looks. I imagine at some point it will have so much paint on it that it will look like a shapeless blob – which might make an interesting seat in itself. At that time I’ll strip it back and start all over again.
Integrity Toys did an excellent job with their version of the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona chair – in fact this saved me a packet: the Vitra version is so much more expensive and it doesn’t come complete with an area rug and groovy scatter cushions!
Similarly, the iconic Verner Panton S Chairs for the Dynamite Girls are a great scaled-down copy of the originals. I love them because they remind me of one of my favorite restaurants from when we were living in London: Ottolenghi – check out their cookbooks, truly fab. Anyway Ottolenghi has a simple white lacquer table running down the whole length of the restaurant and all of the chairs are white S Chairs save for the odd orange one as a focal point splash of color. Gorgeous.
Maybe my favorites are some simple wooden chairs picked up for very little on a trip to Stockholm. They are based on old Swedish designs and work well in traditional or modern room sets.
But if you’re going for retro-modern opulence, check out Horsman’s Urban Environment furniture range – it’s beautifully detailed and perfectly scaled for either 12-inch or 16-inch dolls.
I have also experimented with the Japanese Re-Ment range of scale furniture – they did great boxed sets of mid -20th century classics. This is a little more hit-and-miss as every box looks the same, and the idea is you don’t know what you’re getting until you open it. The only way to guarantee you’ll have the seat of your dreams is to buy a whole case of them. This, however, is pricey and why not just buy the one you want from Vitra in the first place? But I did get a lovely pair of Rennie Macintosh dining chairs – as designed for the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow. So even though I got off the subject of suitcases, this has still turned into something of a travelogue.
I picked up a great wooden chair on eBay that has just the right amount of simplicity and rustic charm to use with Sasha Dolls – roughly painted in country green and gently distressed, it’s absolutely the right scale for Sasha, Gregor, and their chums.
A metal chair that looks like it might have come out of an Eastern European pleasure garden has just the right amount of insouciance to work well with high fashion dolls like Paul Pham’s Devon and other 16″ resin girls. The color is something of a challenge – an uncompromising shade of yellow – but so far it’s worked for me, and who says those eBay bargains have to remain in their original color?
One of my most recent online auction finds was a great park bench that could easily have come straight from the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, I’m just waiting for the right opportunity to show this off, but you get a sneak peek – unadorned by a doll – right here.
Then there’s the rather fab Thonet bentwood chair that came unannounced and without fanfare with the Barbie Jazz pivotal range. It’s such a perfect copy – I actually bought one of the dolls just to get the chair! As it turned out the doll wasn’t bad either.
Another travelling discovery was a set of Eiffel chairs based on the Charles and Ray Eames DSR original fiberglass designs from the 50s. We found them in a little junk shop in Amsterdam for very little money. These are a little odd as they are made of pottery and metal – so are unexpectedly fragile. They were wrapped in lots of socks for the flight home. But they look just right for a kitschy period flavor.
And finally, the much-loved classic mid-century range based on classic Danish design, Mattel Modern Furniture. This series has become highly desirable amongst collectors in recent years, fetching sometimes eye-watering prices for mint, boxed examples.
Happy hunting! There are plenty of chair bargains to be had out there, especially if you’re not adverse to applying a lick of paint or reupholstering.
This feature first appeared in Fashion Doll Quarterly magazine, Spring 2012