October 2020

By Toogood x Hem

Faye Toogood's new Puffy Lounge Chair marks the start of our collaboration with Swedish furniture brand Hem.

The lounge chair is the first introduction of Hem’s Puffy Seating Collection, which will encompass a range of chair and stool products, offering a tactile new take on the enduring concept of steel-framed furniture.

The Puffy Lounge Chair combines the clinical lines of Modernist furniture with a deep, satisfying sense of comfort. The tubular frame of sandblasted stainless-steel peeks out from beneath a detachable upholstery of soft, quilted fabric which sits atop a canvas sling for support and is zipped in place with a hidden zipper. The overall feeling is one of being enveloped in a plumply padded duvet.

“The idea behind the Puffy Seating Collection is to emphasise the two almost contradictory ideas at play in the furniture,” Toogood says of the design, “First, stability and strength, highlighted by leaving the stainless-steel framework on display; and second, comfort and reassurance, in the form of the puffy upholstery. The resulting pieces have a dependable durability coupled with all the enveloping warmth of a familiar duvet.”

Hem founder and CEO, Petrus Palmer says of the collaboration: "I've always admired Faye's work; it is utilitarian, yet extremely rich with reference. She borrows freely from a multitude of cultures and expressions, but always makes it distinctly her own. To be able to work together has been an ambition of mine since first starting Hem. The launch of the Puffy Chair realises this ambition and culminates over two years of research and design development. It has been a real labour of love and we look forward to introducing this distinctive new design to our portfolio, as well as continuing the journey with the launch of the full Puffy Seating Collection in the near future".

The Puffy Chair is available to purchase exclusively at Hem in three duvet colours and three frame finishes that can be mixed and matched. The steel frames come in Sandblasted Stainless Steel, Powder Coated Anthracite and Powder Coated Chalk. The duvet is available in Natural Canvas, Anthracite Canvas, and a Sand- coloured Leather.