The Top 10 Types of Replica Furniture

Repli­ca fur­ni­ture — or fur­ni­ture is fur­ni­ture that no longer holds a copy­right and can be legal­ly repro­duced by oth­er com­pa­nies — is all the rage right now. You may not even real­ize that cer­tain types of repli­ca fur­ni­ture — like the Tolix chairs — are actu­al­ly repli­cas of an orig­i­nal design­er cre­ation. Most main­stream fur­ni­ture brands pro­duce repli­cas, mak­ing it tricky to know what’s orig­i­nal. While the orig­i­nal pieces can cost you upwards of $4,000, you can pur­chase the repli­ca for a frac­tion of the price. Although there are eth­i­cal argu­ments against the pur­chase of repli­cas, they are still a great way to get the look you want at a more afford­able price point. Read on for the details of our top ten favorite replicas!

1. The Barcelona Chair

The orig­i­nal Barcelona chair was designed by famous artist Lud­wig Mies van der Rohe in 1929, and has quick­ly become a hot com­mod­i­ty. The leather weave and sil­ver chrome make this a time­less piece, though the UK has banned repli­cas of the chair until 2039.

The authen­tic ver­sion is sold by British fur­ni­ture com­pa­ny Knoll for £5,232, but its design is still so pop­u­lar nowa­days that even the repli­cas still come at a con­sid­er­able high price – talk about sup­ply and demand!

2. The Tolix Chair

A favorite in hip­ster bars and cof­fee shops, the orig­i­nal Tolix chair was designed by a French­man named Xavier Pauchard in 1927. Because of the abun­dance of met­al in his design, this chair was often used on ships, and in fac­to­ries and offices.

You could find the Tolix any­where where durable fur­ni­ture was need­ed. Now, ver­sions of this chair sell for any­where between $50 and $100 per chair.

3. The Egg Chair

The Egg Chair was cre­at­ed in 1958 in Copen­hagen, and became famous by virtue of its appear­ance on Big Broth­er. The orig­i­nal chair was made by Arne Jacob­sen, an archi­tect and design­er pas­sion­ate about com­bin­ing func­tion­al­ism and sim­plic­i­ty – not to men­tion comfort!

An orig­i­nal Egg Chair would cost around $5,000, but you can find a nice repro­duc­tion for much less, prob­a­bly around $700.

4. The Noguchi Table

Japan­ese-Amer­i­can Isamu Noguchi, the famous design­er behind the icon­ic table car­ry­ing his name, was inspired by “bio­mor­phism”.

The idea behind bio­mor­phism is to mod­el design ele­ments on nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring pat­terns and shapes. This cre­ates a nat­ur­al effect, and makes the piece feel alive. The result? The Noguchi table bal­ances hard­wood with clear glass for a ver­sa­tile, mod­ern style reflect­ing the inge­nu­ity of its creator.

The authen­tic table goes for around $1,750, while a great repli­ca can be found for just under $350.

5. The Bertoia Diamond Chair

The orig­i­nal dia­mond chair was craft­ed by archi­tect and design­er Har­ry Bertoia in 1952 and has become short­hand for Mid-Cen­tu­ry Mod­ern design. Made of steel with rods dipped in pol­ished, or satin chrome, this chair is durable and comfortable.

It makes a great addi­tion to out­door din­ing sets, espe­cial­ly if you can find repli­cas for less than the stan­dard price of $770 per chair!

6. The Hollywood Studio Inspired Tripod Floor Lamp

The three-legged floor lamp was made pop­u­lar back in the 1950’s. Inspired by movie Hol­ly­wood stu­dio show lamps, this floor lamp was con­sid­ered a big inno­va­tion and it marked one of the ear­ly moments in his­to­ry were an indus­try, or office envi­ron­ment, would influ­ence design into the home. The lamp’s mod­u­lar form allowed design­ers to com­bine var­i­ous col­ored lamp shades with dif­fer­ent wood finishes.

Retail­ers, like Restora­tion Hard­ware, sell repro­duc­tion ver­sions of the lamp for $1,895, but you can find sim­i­lar designs for less than $200. This style pairs with many dif­fer­ent tastes: min­i­mal­ism, Scan­di­na­vian design, clas­sic, and con­tem­po­rary. It’s also a great, ver­sa­tile sta­ple for any apartment.

7. The Shell Chair

The Shell Chair was orig­i­nal­ly craft­ed by Dan­ish design­er Hans J. Weg­n­er in 1963. Weg­n­er had a sim­i­lar aes­thet­ic to the design­er of the Egg Chair, Arne Jacob­sen. Both men worked in a style described as “organ­ic func­tion­al­i­ty,” mod­ernist with an empha­sis on func­tion. This unique­ly Scan­di­na­vian approach led to pieces like the Shell Chair, which fea­tures a wing-like seat and three tapered legs.

The authen­tic Shell Chair is now sold by Carl Hansen & Søn for between $2,750 and $5,000, but repli­cas can be found for right under $1,000.

8. The Eames Lounge Chair

Look­ing for some styl­ish office fur­ni­ture? Then you need to know about the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman that Ray and Charles Eames designed for the Her­man Miller fur­ni­ture company.

This famous piece, designed in 1956, is now fea­tured in the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the New York Muse­um of Mod­ern Art. The hus­band and wife duo spent years per­fect­ing their design for this chair. It’s one of the few pieces they cre­at­ed that couldn’t be mass pro­duced due to it’s inge­nious struc­tur­al form.

Inspired by the tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish Club Chair, this piece is “priced upon inquiry.” How­ev­er, you can get a repli­ca ver­sion for around $700. Need­less to say, this is one of the most com­fort­able chairs we’ve ever sat on.

9. The Prouvé Chair

Jean Prou­ve was a French met­al work­er and self-taught archi­tect and design­er and one of the fore­fa­thers of the devel­op­ment of the idea of “nomadic archi­tec­ture.” Prouve’s min­i­mal­ist approach was inspired by porta­bil­i­ty, mak­ing his designs extreme­ly ver­sa­tile and per­fect for a mod­ern liv­ing space.

His name­sake chair is con­struct­ed with just steel and wood – a util­i­tar­i­an approach to mod­ern fur­ni­ture. Its design may look like uncom­fort­able and intense to the body, but the shaped wood seat is designed to con­form to one’s body.

The orig­i­nal Prou­vé chair retails for $995, but you can find a repro­duc­tions for around $100.

10. The Acapulco Chair

Unlike the oth­er pieces in this list, the Aca­pul­co Chair is a rel­a­tive­ly new addi­tion to the repli­ca scene. It was cre­at­ed by design firm Innit and has quick­ly spread in pop­u­lar­i­ty. The Aca­pul­co chair a favorite in high-end homes from Bev­er­ly Hills to Miami.

The orig­i­nal chair has a met­al frame with spring­ly, woven vinyl cords, and is priced at $430. But with some dig­ging, you can find a sim­i­lar chair for less than $100.

Cre­at­ing a cap­ti­vat­ing liv­ing space no longer demands spend­ing huge amounts of mon­ey. All you need is some inspi­ra­tion from your favorite design­er and high-qual­i­ty pieces to dec­o­rate your home. Just make sure to turn to a trust­ed com­mu­ni­ty, like Apt­De­co, and you’ll be able to glam up your space with repli­ca fur­ni­ture that will make your home Pin­ter­est worthy.

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Arti­cle by Emi­ly Heaslip
Pho­tos via Dezeen, Cult­Fur­ni­ture, Dai­ly Mail UK, Her­man Miller, Knoll, West Elm, Design With­in Reach, 3D Mod­els, Indus­try West, Innit Designs