Eames DSW Style Dining Chairs LIGHT BLUE

Six around a table, and room to walk past

The armless version exists for a practical reason: it goes all the way under. Arms are lovely until you're trying to fit six chairs around a table meant for four, or squeeze past one in a narrow kitchen. Take them off and the same shell becomes a chair you can actually live with in a real-sized British dining room.

The shape dates to the late 1940s, when a handful of designers worked out that a single moulded seat — curved to the body rather than flat and padded — could be lighter, cheaper and more comfortable than anything built from a frame and cushions. Seventy-odd years later nobody has improved on it, which is why the outline still turns up in kitchens, cafés and studios without ever looking dated.

What it's made of

The shell is moulded ABS, formed in one piece with a curve through the lumbar that does more work than you'd expect from something this thin. Non-porous surface, so red wine, tomato sauce and small children are all survivable — a damp cloth handles most of it.

Legs are solid beech, tapered, splayed outward and braced with a metal cross-strut. The timber is what stops the chair reading as office furniture; on the chrome-legged versions the same shell feels considerably more industrial.

Buying a set

A few things worth knowing before you order four or six:

• Shells come in a range of colours and mixing them looks deliberate, not accidental — a common approach is one shell colour per seat, or two alternating
• Armless chairs tuck fully under a standard-height dining table, so you can push everything in and clear the floor
• The chair is light enough that rearranging a room isn't a job
• If you want one chair at the head of the table to sit differently, the armchair version on the same beech legs gives you that without breaking the set

Also available

Same shell, different bases: armchair on beech dowel legs, side chair on chrome wire legs, armchair on chrome wire legs, and a bar-height stool for islands and breakfast bars.

Dimensions