There’s a certain art to designing a dining space. The dinner table is, for many, sacred ground, where we come together over much more than just food. It’s a home base where everyone is encouraged to put distractions aside and sink into the present moment. The dining table tends to take centre stage in such set-ups, the accompanying chairs often hanging back as unsung heroes. We see no sense in missing the opportunity to make a space sing in its entirety, so we’ve rounded up our favouring dining chair designs for all tastes. We hope, in doing so, we may spark some dining room inspiration…
Cantilevered Dining Chair
The Angel Dining Chair is a rather cool customer. It’s simple and sleek with a subtle lean to the back, giving it a strikingly modern look. The chair is designed to accompany our Angel Dining Table, with carefully curved feet that echo across both pieces. Though, we’ve found it pairs beautifully with more traditional dining tables as well, giving a current, design-forward boost to the arrangement. This cantilevered metal chair draws inspiration from modern icons, breathing new life into a tried-and-true silhouette. The piece gains an especially contemporary character in our ‘Butterfly’ finishes. There’s a mercurial quality to the colours of ‘Mariposa Verde’ as they cascade over the chair, melting from deep burgundy into vivid green. With countless opportunities to customise the design, the choice is yours.
Art Nouveau Dining Chair
The Vienna Dining Chair is an Art Nouveau-inspired design, though it works far beyond the sinuous lines and sweeping curves of the style. We find they’re fantastically effective grouped around a strong, sculptural dining table, tempering more solid, geometric forms with their spindly lines. There’s something about the contrast of a big, bold dining table flanked by svelte, vibrantly coloured chairs that strikes a chord. The Vienna Carver Dining Chair, with its pronounced armrests, does especially well in this respect. The Non-Carver edition has a more pared-back, relaxed look, making it a great tool for quieting visually busier dining spaces.
Modern Dining Chair
Left: Jak Chairs in ‘Chalk’ with ‘Lime’ Upholstery + Atlantic Round Dining Table in ‘Chalk’ with Oak lipping | Right: Jak Chair in ‘Ocean Blue’ with ‘Atlantic Blue’ leather
Jak is a chair distilled down to its essential elements. It is simplicity itself, with an exacting attention to detail. This ultra-light aluminium chair is so pared-back that every part left has got to be formed to perfection. A good deal of time is spent ensuring the edges of each metal component are just right, and every joint is seamlessly integrated for clarity of form. Because it’s such a clean, unadorned design, it’s incredibly versatile. Jak makes an excellent addition to modern spaces, aligning perfectly with that unfussy sensibility. Though, it also holds its own in more maximalist interiors, serving to bring a sense of structure and a moment of visual reprieve to its surroundings.
Classic Dining Chair
Left: Tiffany Dining Chair in Bronze with velvet | Right: Tiffany Dining Chairs + Capricorn Round Dining Table
The Tiffany is one of our best-loved dining chairs. It’s got a slightly more traditional form, yet the materials used bring a contemporary quality to the piece, creating a balanced look. The chair’s metal structure has a stark, clean-cut quality about it, while its curvilinear form softens the overall appearance. Opting for a plush, tactile upholstery like velvet bolsters the effect, creating a particularly inviting perch. We often pair this chair with our Capricorn Dining Table as there’s an intriguing interplay between the hourglass form of the table’s pedestal and the negative space at the back of the chair. The Tiffany does, however, work well with more materially rich, wooden tables, giving the dining space a slick, contemporary lift.
Bold Dining Chair
Left: Berlin Dining Chair in Bronze with Midori Green leather | Right: Berlin Dining Chairs + Exe Rectangular Dining Table
Our Berlin Dining Chair is an uncomplicated design that excels in the comfort department. It’s a more structured take on our Berlin Easy Chair, which is a sling-back design geared more towards lounging with a good book than dining with friends. We do, however, often carry over the key ingredient of the Easy Chair iteration, incorporating oak-bark tanned bridle leather into the seat. We welcome bespoke upholstery as well, which can serve to animate the chair’s more stoic water-cut steel frame. This is a piece that tends to go well alongside a rectangular dining table, due to its emphatically geometric form. They also look well lined up along a wall as extra seating, in case of dinner party tag-alongs. They take on a lovely, unified bench-like look and lend a sense of order to their space.
If we’ve inspired you to take a deeper dive on dining chairs, you can continue your explorations with our Top 10 Iconic Chair Designs. Tom is often influenced by the work of modern masters, and you may find a strong dialogue between the pieces. Once you’ve made your pick and the dining room is ready to receive friends, pop on Tom’s Dinner Party Playlist and you’re off the races, in style!
Text by Annabel Colterjohn