Stitched chair by Henny van Nistelrooy: A mix of high and low tech

There’s a saying that goes “a stitch in time saves nine.” Well, with Henny van Nistelrooy, a few stitches save time, money, and effort in the building of a chair! This young Dutch designer has created what he calls the Stitched Chair, and as can be inferred from the name, it’s a kind of seat that involved sewing in its creation.

But it isn’t the chair’s upholstery that was stitched and sewn. No, it’s the chair itself! In van Nistelrooy’s own words, he found a way to create such products using not much more than his scissors and sewing machine. Plus a few high-tech materials like carbon fiber fabric and DuPont’s Kevlar fabric – a material used in making bulletproof vests.

He conceptualized and developed his idea during his final year at the Royal College of Art. He stitched a piece of carbon fiber to create a stool and was surprised to find how hard and durable it became when the resin dried. Not only that, for such a strong product, it didn’t weigh much at all. It was practically a solution to some of the problems that come with conventional furniture design and development, such as wasted materials, high cost of tools and machines used, volume and weight that make pieces cumbersome to transfer and use.

With the Stitched Chair, there is no need for specialized equipment, no waste of natural resources, no nails, no screws. Since it’s so lightweight, it’s economical to transport and easy to store and maintain. If they’re put to commercial use, such as bistro café chairs, their negligible weight would make them easy to arrange as needed. Not only that, their unusual construction and materials would make for a great attention-getter too.

Henny van Nistelrooy calls his creation a mischievous product. It’s more than that. I think it’s wickedly cool.