Founded on a small workshop in Aarhus in 1955, Scandinavian furniture brand Wendelbo has grown to become one of the world’s most loved design and furniture companies - expanding its presence to more than 60 countries across six continents over the last few decades. In 2007, the 3rd generation of Wendelbo family began to move to Saigon to expand their business, and not long after that, they decided to set up a 25,000-square-meter factory and showroom at the heart of Saigon, with 800 employees as of today.
Wendelbo is well-known for its elegant designs that are true to the Scandinavian design mindset, with the combination of delicate materials and perfect handicrafts. Not only seeking inspiration from the family heritage, but Wendelbo also collaborates with contemporary designers and interior studios to produce unique interior masterpieces that meet the needs of the modern world, all while preserving the brand’s historical essence.
Here are three of the latest designs from Wendelbo collaborative collections.
Aloe - Soft spot
Wendelbo continues its successful collaboration with Italian designer Luca Nichetto, with the launch of a soft, comfortable lounge chair in a design that unites organic and stringent styling. Luca Nichetto’s inspiration for the Aloe Lounge Chair came from nature, with the soft yet upright shape of the Aloe Vera plant as the starting point.
Like the leaves of the Aloe Vera plant, the Aloe Lounge Chair combines a rounded, soft shape with elegant tension and an upright attitude. Italian designer Luca Nichetto, already a contributor to Wendelbo’s collection, also took his inspiration for the new high-backed lounge chair by studying the structure of this iconic health plant.
“The lounge chair consists of a black lacquered steel tubular frame that supports the padded shell in a way that adds visual tissue and a light, almost weightless look to the furniture,” Luca Nichetto explains, and he has let the chair’s shell sink into the slanted embrace of the frame. This approach to the design gives the chair a dynamic look and a sense that the chair is balanced on a single point.
The curved, tightly padded outer shape of the shell contrasts with a soft interior. The inviting upholstery sports horizontal stitching centrally on the back piece – creating the effect of a fold in the textile, and an expectation of comfort. Another important detail is the edge stitching, which establishes coherence between the chair back and armrests while emphasising the embracing shape.
“Once again, Luca Nichetto has succeeded in creating an innovative design that fits perfectly into Wendelbo’s collection. The Aloe Lounge Chair looks light and very comfortable,” says Lars Wendelbo, Design and Product Manager at Wendelbo.
Aloe is available in a wide selection of textiles, and leather.
Expose - An exhibition platform worth keeping
Expose by Wendelbo is a new, multifunctional furniture concept somewhere between a coffee table, a podium and an exhibition platform – in short, a new way of exhibiting home accessories. The range was designed by Jonas Wagell, from Sweden, pursuing an idea to develop a table with clean lines made of exclusive materials, on which you can display works of art and design objects, and where you can hide away the things that should not be on public display.
Coffee table books, small sculptures, handicrafts, antiques and vases are given a completely new platform with Expose. This minimalist yet extravagant range of tables that Jonas Wagell developed for Wendelbo are ideal as an exhibition platform for selected design objects or as a base for creatively arranged still lifes. The tables, constructed with several layers of different materials, also allow you to store things out of sight.
The Swedish designer began by playing with paper to come up with just the right shape, dimensions and structure. Just as paper gains strength when folded, Jonas Wagell experimented with transferring that principle to a simple shape made of thin steel, with simple folds.
A smoked glass tabletop sits on the steel structure of the table, giving a sense of transparency, while there is a marble slab as the base, adding gravitas and balance. Between the top and bottom is a steel shelf, which adds strength to the table and provides space for storing things that do not need to be on display. The shelf, which accounts for two-thirds of the dimensions of the table, extends to the back edge to reach full height on the opposite side. This creates space for books, large objects or plants.
The tables are available in three sizes that can be used separately or in a dynamic cluster. In the designer’s own words, Expose is a combination of minimalist form and international extravagance. With a mix of black lacquered steel, smoked glass and marble, these tables make an elegant, graphic statement.
Ovata - A soft embrace
“What you see is what you get” could appropriately be the headline for the new Ovata Lounge Chair, created by Sweden’s Note Design Studio for Wendelbo of Denmark. The welcoming design and soft styling are entirely in keeping with the soft, embracing comfort the chair offers.
The styling is soft, plump and balanced, and the intention of the Swedish designers from Note Design Studio was to create a lounge chair that offers a warm embrace. With that in mind, the designers focused on both the body and soul in working with Wendelbo to come up with the shape of the Ovata Lounge Chair.
Note Design Studio, already a contributor to Wendelbo’s collection with the Mango lounge chair, has once again found inspiration in the plant kingdom. Ovata’s embracing back is based on the design of the plant with the same name – a succulent with strong, soft, curvy leaves.
The chair, which has no visible legs, has a monumental seat that attaches softly to the back piece and skims the floor, lightly floating. The seat has a concave arch on top that trumps the organic styling and invites you to sit down. The image of a comfortable chair is supported by the inner, gently curved upholstery of the back, contrasting with the otherwise smooth textile surface of the chair.
With its distinctive design and relatively minimalist dimensions, the Ovata Lounge Chair lives up to the designers’ goal of always seeking honest, simple styling. Their philosophy is that if the first impression of a chair appears soft and inviting, then it must also meet those expectations when you sit down.
“Good design is about communicating to the body and soul at the same time. And the Ovata Lounge Chair is no exception,” according to the designers.