Why Buy Classic Furniture Designs New When They Resell at 50%?

MY HUSBAND recently set up his home office in a separate, private building—formerly known as our garage—so he could Zoom loudly and with abandon.

As far as I knew, everything was going well until one day he appeared in the house during working hours.

“There’s something I’m afraid we are going to have to talk about,” he said somberly. “I’ve been dreading this conversation for a long time.”

I composed myself. And then he said: “I want a new desk chair.”

I was shocked. After all, we have been married more than 30 years, and for much of that time he was very happy with the beige upholstered armchair that used to be in our living room—even if it had let itself go a little after three kids and a succession of dogs and cats who took up residence on it.

“You always said you loved that chair,” I said.

“People change,” he said. “We grow, sometimes in mysterious ways. I want an Aeron chair—”

I gasped.

“—and it costs US$1,645.”

He had a specific configuration in mind. After visiting Design Within Reach (an authorised retailer of the moulded-plastic office chair by Herman Miller that transformed the aesthetic of ergonomic furniture when it debuted in 1994), he fell for a fully loaded model with adjustable back support, movable arms, tilt control and casters designed to glide effortlessly across carpet.

Was it worth US$1,645?

After all, plenty of preowned Aeron chairs are available with lower price tags, like many other iconic 20th-century furniture designs that remain in production decades after their introduction, including the Eames leather lounger, the Saarinen tulip table and the George Nelson marshmallow settee. Once-loved used and vintage models on the secondary market “usually are going to be 50% off the retail price,” said Noel Fahden Briceño, vice president of merchandising at online furnishings marketplace Chairish.

So why would anyone ever buy a new version of an original design?

“My friends ask me the same question,” said Ben Watson, president of Herman Miller. “Buy vintage if you’re a real student of design and have the knowledge to weed out knockoffs or scammers or something repaired poorly. But if you want to specify exactly the furniture you want—with a specific leather or fabric or veneer—buy a new one if your budget can afford it.”

Interior designers say that when buying furniture for clients, they choose between preowned and new on a case-by-case basis.

“I’m not a fan of vintage Eames chairs because I don’t like the way the tufting ages,” said Jessica Maros, an interior designer in Dallas. “But I’m obsessed with vintage Togo leather sofas designed by Michel Ducaroy for Ligne Roset. You can even throw red wine on that leather and somehow it just develops a patina that gets better and better.”

Of course, one buyer’s wine-soaked patina is another’s hygiene nightmare. “What many people don’t realize is that the patina develops from oils from the body on older aniline leathers. The color gets darker because you sit on the sofa,” said Simone Vingerhoets-Ziesmann, executive vice president of Ligne Roset USA, where new versions of Togo styles that debuted in the 1970s cost from $2,905 to $12,670, depending on size and fabric choice.

Wear and tear is usually worse on upholstered pieces than on categories such as lighting, coffee tables and artwork, which tend to age gracefully, said Shannon Eddings, an interior designer in Austin, Texas. “Most of our completed designs feature at least one vintage or antique item from those categories.”

“Why would I advise anyone not to buy the new ones?” Luca Fuso, chief executive of Italian furniture company Cassina, told me. I couldn’t tell if he was offended by the suggestion or just passionate about his inventory. “Because we manufacture the new ones, we have no reason whatsoever to recommend vintage items.”

Manufacturers say that in some cases production processes have improved in the decades since a design was introduced. “The finishings are lasting much longer, and the materials are more reliable,” said Mr. Fuso, of Cassina, which since 1965 has owned the rights to produce the iconic chrome-framed Le Corbusier armchairs introduced in 1928.

Given all the pros and cons, would my husband be happy with a preowned Aeron chair?

After all, the version he tested at Design Within Reach was a Remastered model introduced with great fanfare in 2016, with improved spinal support and more fully adjustable armrests.

“I need the spinal support,” he assured me.

“Fine,” I said. “But before we decide, let’s drive over to this office-furniture liquidator I found alongside the highway in Silicon Valley.”

An hour later, we were standing in Better Source, a warehouse in San Mateo, Calif., filled with rows of office cubicles, credenzas and conference-room chairs. The Aerons were lined up right by the entrance—dozens if not scores—like a vast army of spinal support. Three other prospective buyers were already sitting in the chairs—rocking back and forth in them, adjusting the tilt angle, testing the spinal support.

Prices ranged from $565 to $980.

“These chairs look new,” I said to salesman Bob Callaway while my husband started rolling around in one.

“Since the pandemic started, we’ve been getting a lot that companies ordered in 2019,” the salesman said. “In some cases, they are from offices where people still haven’t gone back to work.”

The work-from-home revolution has caused a glut of surplus office furniture. Where once Better Source would get 10 calls a week from potential sellers, “now we’re getting 10 a day,” Mr. Callaway said. “Sometimes, like, 400 chairs in one lot.” In fact, the building we were standing in is a fraction of the size of the main warehouse 25 miles away in Hayward, he said.

“Look at this,” my husband said excitedly. “Here’s one that looks just like the one at Design Within Reach.” Sure enough, it was a Remastered model. The cost: $980.

An hour later, the old beige armchair was back in the living room. The dogs were thrilled.

Vintage vs. From-the-Factory

The Eero Saarinen Dining Table, still in production by Knoll, was introduced in 1957. It costs $2,899 from Design Plus Consignment Gallery and US$4,027 new from Knoll.

The George Nelson Marshmallow Sofa, manufactured from 1956 to ‘61, was re-introduced as part of the Herman Miller Classics collection in the ‘80s and remains in production today. It sells for US$3,250 at resale site Social Objects and US$5,285 from Design Within Reach.

The 699 Superleggera chair by Gio Ponti with cane seat, in production for more than six decades, has a price tag of US$2,197.82 on Archiproducts; 1stDibs is asking US$1,725.55.

I wish to protest the current ugliness. I see it as a continuing trend, “the uglification of everything.” It is coming out of our culture with picked-up speed, and from many media silos, and I don’t like it.

You remember the 1999 movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” from the Patricia Highsmith novel. It was fabulous—mysteries, murders, a sociopath scheming his way among high-class expats on the Italian Riviera. The laid-back glamour of Jude Law, the Grace Kelly-ness of Gwyneth Paltrow, who looks like a Vogue magazine cover decided to take a stroll through the streets of 1950s Venice, the truly brilliant acting of Matt Damon, who is so well-liked by audiences I’m not sure we notice anymore what a great actor he is. The director, Anthony Minghella, deliberately showed you pretty shiny things while taking you on a journey to a heart of darkness.

There’s a new version, a streaming series from Netflix, called “Ripley.” I turned to it eagerly and watched with puzzlement. It is unrelievedly ugly. Grimy, gloomy, grim. Tom Ripley is now charmless, a pale and watchful slug slithering through ancient rooms. He isn’t bright, eager, endearing, only predatory. No one would want to know him! Which makes the story make no sense. Again, Ripley is a sociopath, but few could tell because he seemed so sweet and easy. In the original movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman has an unforgettable turn as a jazz-loving, prep-schooled, in-crowd snob. In this version that character is mirthless, genderless, hidden. No one would want to know him either. Marge, the Paltrow role in the movie, is ponderous and plain, like a lost 1970s hippie, which undercuts a small part of the tragedy: Why is the lovely woman so in love with a careless idler who loves no one?

The ugliness seemed a deliberate artistic decision, as did the air of constant menace, as if we all know life is never nice.

I go to the No. 1 program on Netflix this week, “Baby Reindeer.” People speak highly of it. It’s about a stalker and is based on a true story, but she’s stalking a comic so this might be fun. Oh dear, no. It is again unrelievedly bleak. Life is low, plain and homely. No one is ever nice or kind; all human conversation is opaque and halting; work colleagues are cruel and loud. Everyone is emotionally incapable and dumb. No one laughs except for the morbidly obese stalker, who cackles madly. The only attractive person is the transgender girlfriend, who has a pretty smile and smiles a lot, but cries a lot too and is vengeful.

Good drama always makes you think. I thought: Do I want to continue living?

I go to the Daily Mail website, once my guilty pleasure. High jinks of the rich and famous, randy royals, fast cars and movie stars, models and rock stars caught in the drug bust. It was great! But it seems to have taken a turn and is more about crime, grime, human sadness and degradation—child abuse, mothers drowning their babies, “Man murders family, self.” It is less a portal into life’s mindless, undeserved beauty, than a testimony to its horrors.

I go to the new “Cabaret.” Who doesn’t love “Cabaret”? It is dark, witty, painful, glamorous. The music and lyrics have stood the test of time. The story’s backdrop: The soft decadence of Weimar is being replaced by the hard decadence of Nazism.

It is Kander and Ebb’s masterpiece, revived again and again. And this revival is hideous. It is ugly, bizarre, inartistic, fundamentally stupid. Also obscene but in a purposeless way, without meaning.

I had the distinct feeling the producers take their audience to be distracted dopamine addicts with fractured attention spans and no ability to follow a story. They also seemed to have no faith in the story itself, so they went with endless pyrotechnics. This is “Cabaret” for the empty-headed. Everyone screams. The songs are slowed, because you might need a moment to take it in. Almost everyone on stage is weirdly hunched, like a gargoyle, everyone overacts, and all of it is without art.

On the way in, staffers put stickers on the cameras of your phone, “to protect our intellectual property,” as one said.

It isn’t an easy job to make the widely admired Eddie Redmayne unappealing, but by God they did it. As he’s a producer I guess he did it, too. He takes the stage as the Emcee in a purple leather skirt with a small green cone on his head and appears further on as a clown with a machine gun and a weird goth devil. It is all so childish, so plonkingly empty.

Here is something sad about modern artists: They are held back by a lack of limits.

Bob Fosse, the director of the classic 1972 movie version, got to push against society’s limits and Broadway’s and Hollywood’s prohibitions. He pushed hard against what was pushing him, which caused friction; in the heat of that came art. Directors and writers now have nothing to push against because there are no rules or cultural prohibitions, so there’s no friction, everything is left cold, and the art turns in on itself and becomes merely weird.

Fosse famously loved women. No one loves women in this show. When we meet Sally Bowles, in the kind of dress a little girl might put on a doll, with heavy leather boots and harsh, garish makeup, the character doesn’t flirt, doesn’t seduce or charm. She barks and screams, angrily.

Really it is harrowing. At one point Mr. Redmayne dances with a toilet plunger, and a loaf of Italian bread is inserted and removed from his anal cavity. I mentioned this to my friend, who asked if I saw the dancer in the corner masturbating with a copy of what appeared to be “Mein Kampf.”

That’s what I call intellectual property!

In previous iterations the Kit Kat Club was a hypocrisy-free zone, a place of no boundaries, until the bad guys came and it wasn’t. I’m sure the director and producers met in the planning stage and used words like “breakthrough” and “a ‘Cabaret’ for today,” and “we don’t hide the coming cruelty.” But they do hide it by making everything, beginning to end, lifeless and grotesque. No innocence is traduced because no innocence exists.

How could a show be so frantic and outlandish and still be so tedious? It’s almost an achievement.

And for all that there is something smug about it, as if they’re looking down from some great, unearned height.

I left thinking, as I often do now on seeing something made ugly: This is what purgatory is going to be like. And then, no, this is what hell is going to be like—the cackling stalker, the pale sociopath, Eddie Redmayne dancing with a plunger.

Why does it all bother me?

Because even though it isn’t new, uglification is rising and spreading as an artistic attitude, and it can’t be good for us. Because it speaks of self-hatred, and a society that hates itself, and hates life, won’t last. Because it gives those who are young nothing to love and feel soft about. Because we need beauty to keep our morale up.

Because life isn’t merde, in spite of what our entertainment geniuses say.

Why Buy Classic Furniture Designs New When They Resell at 50%?

If you can get iconic 20th-century pieces for significantly less money on the secondary market, why would you purchase new from the manufacturer? We ask the experts.

Vintage vs. From-the-Factory

Artistic culture has taken a repulsive turn. It speaks of a society that hates itself, and hates life.