For your inner Louis XV

BROWSING THROUGH the showroom at the Classic Chair feels a bit like exploring a museum. The shop sells reproductions of rare antique furniture along with home decor from Britain’s Georgian and Regency periods. British antique dealer Paul Kenny established the firm in 1957, selling all sorts of collectibles, then shifted to manufacturing reproductions of furniture from 1760 to 1835, right down to the proportions, materials and finish. While travelling in Southeast Asia in 1984, he started a Classic Chair joint venture with Thai entrepreneur Thirat Nardviriyakul, registered offshore to save on costs. It currently has showrooms in London and Sydney and distributors in the US, France, China, Japan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. “Paul Kenny is proficient in antique furniture,” says Thirat, the managing director. “After we started our joint venture we decided to opens factories in Thailand and Vietnam seven or eight years ago. Recently we launched two new brands – Pierre Philippe and Monaco Living – each with its own theme and targeting younger urbanites.” The Bangkok showroom moved early this month from the Park Nai Lert Hotel to a four-storey building on New Petchaburi Road, where it stocks thousands of luxurious pieces from all three brands in 2,000 square metres. There are cabinets, consoles, dining tables, armchairs, stools, sofas, lamps, mirrors, chandeliers, side tables, desks, beds and bookcases. The Classic Chair offers high-class French- and English-style hand-finished furniture inspired by models and designs popular from the 1740s to the 1840s. “It was a golden age for furniture, with great diversity in the materials and technology,” Thirat says. “This was the heyday of famous designers like Thomas Chippendale and George Hepplewhite. “We’ve designed and restored furniture for 10 royal families, including the Danish and the British, who have our pieces at Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace.”The Classic Chair uses mostly solid American mahogany and rosewood from South Africa, Myanmar and Laos. Terrazzo and marble are used for some of the components. One striking item is an English Chippendale chair with yoke rails and a carved back. It’s a dead ringer for the one pic tured in Thomas Chippendale’s 1754 pattern book, “The Gentleman’s and Cabinet Maker’s Directory”. There’s also a Butler’s Tray with a stand that folds down and a Library Chair designed to assist in scaling the bookshelves. A Robert Jupe Chiffonier two-door cupboard has two drawers above. The Pierre Philippe line, inaugurated in 2004, is elegant yet cosy French provincial style, taking inspiration from wealthy European estates in the 18th and 19th centuries. The furnishings primarily utilise durable beech wood and the skins of goats, sheep and even stingrays. The inventory took a decidedly more modern turn this year with the addition of furniture from the Art Deco era in maple, rosewood, cherry and Italian ebony. The vibrant and often contrasting colours add to the jazzy thrill of the art genre’s shapes and lines that defined modern elegance beginning in the 1920s. HAVE A SEAT >>The Classic Chair is on New Petchburi Road with branches on Ekamai Road and at the Crystal Design Centre. >>It’s open daily from 9.30 to 6.30. >>Call (02) 716 6768 or visit www.ClassicChair.com.