Morgans Chair

Designer: Andrée Putman

French designer and interior architect Andrée Putman (1925 - ) made her name reproducing 20th-century furnishings of designers like Eileen Gray, Mallet-Stevens, Pierre Chareau and Jean-Michel Frank through her Parisian firm Ecart International. However, Ms. Putman became a design icon in her own right with projects including shop interiors for Yves St Laurent, Thierry Mugler, Azzedine Alaia and Karl Lagerfeld, as well as Air France's Concorde fleet.

In 1984, when Ian Schrager created Morgans Hotel, he called upon Putman to design the New York City landmark and the genre of the 'boutique hotel' was born. In 1997 she founded Agence Andrée Putman producing design products, furniture and home accessories. In April 2009, at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Putman debuted a minimalist all-aluminium chair for Emeco, inspired by her legendary Morgans Hotel. Putman had originally furnished the Morgans Hotel with the Mallet-Stevens chair, and her new design for Emeco was conceived as a 'soul mate' for that chair.

Emeco's Gregg Buchbinder described Putman as the most stylish woman he had ever known. "Andrée arrived in six-inch stilettos," said Buchbinder. "She told me she wanted to do with the Emeco chair what her friend Coco Chanel did with the 'little black dress' - create a simple, smart, sexy chair that never goes out of style."