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Is The Fredericia Swoon Chair Comfortable?

When you are thinking about buying a chair or sofa, the only thing that really matters is comfort. After all, there are always times when people may use a sofa or chair for hours. They need to know they can stand afterwards without aches or pains. If you are hunting out your perfect furniture, you will see “is a Fredericia Swoon chair comfortable?” as vital information.

You don’t need to worry; it is. But it is worth going into what makes a comfortable lounge chair in more detail. In recent blogs, we have gone into a some detail in examining how to spot a fake and whether the models are made sustainably. Now it is time to look at what makes a chair comfortable and why this Fredericia model works whether you are looking at a swish hotel or a family living room.

What’s in a name?

The “Swoon” name may have echoes of a Victorian heroine in need of smelling salts and having her stays loosened. The books of the time made it clear, however, there were plenty of reasons these ladies might need this treatment. Passion and joy were definitely high on the list, though.

If you think about it, Jane Austen pretty much made a career out of young ladies swooning at the sight of their “beau”. Sometimes, it was not even the whole man — a well-turned calf muscle could pull off the trick.

She was not unique, though. There are plenty of other examples, all the way from Chaucer and Shakespeare, through Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to modern times. For the record, men in literature swoon from passion just as easily and often as women.

Admittedly, collapsing in ecstasy at the sight of a well-turned chair may push the idea towards silliness. But the idea there is something special about the chair is real.

Behind the Swoon

The Swoon chair is the creation of Signe Bindslev Henriksen and Peter Bundgaard Rützou at Space Copenhagen to answer a need. They were struggling to find a small easy chair, something between a conventional lounge chair and a typical armchair. Such a thing was not available anywhere, it seemed.

Seeing a gap, particularly in the hotel and restaurant sector, they set about designing the solution and the Space Copenhagen designed Swoon chair is the result.

It shows Space Copenhagen’s flair for sculptural lines and for creating a sense of unity between furniture and the space it lives in. It also shows Fredericia’s experience with classic furniture production. The designers of the Swoon model went to great lengths to make sure the chair is as soft and inviting as it is possible to be.

It is made from a stylish injection-moulded shell that turns it into a version of a womb chair. That frame is upholstered in either leather or fabric with soft fabric cushions. The legs come in lacquered oak, oiled oak, smoked oak or black lacquered oak.

What makes a chair comfortable?

For all the demands of style, the most important factor in any chair is whether it is comfortable. After all, you can adjust a room’s decor to create the look you are after, but you cannot change the human body. The unit has to give the right support in the right way to the right places.

If you are buying for the home, you can consider the size and weight of the people likely to be using the chair or sofa most frequently. If you are looking at a commercial environment, however, you cannot tailor the furniture to individuals. You have to cater for as many people as possible.

Whichever is relevant, many of the same factors will be key to the decision. The design elements in answering if the Fredericia Swoon chair is comfortable include height, the seat, the back, the arms and its overall strength. Thanks to its clever design, the Fredericia Swoon chair is likely to score well on all of them.

Seated for comfort

The most important part is the seat. This is the bit that does the bulk of the work. The key here is to think like Goldilocks, who found the Daddy Bear’s chair too hard, the Mummy Bear’s chair too soft but the Baby Bear’s chair just right. It was neither too hard nor too soft, just as the porridge was neither too hot nor too cold.

With its soft cushioning over an injection-moulded shell, the Fredericia Swoon chair hits that mark perfectly. Soft enough to relax into but hard enough to give firm support, easy to slump into but also easy to get out of.

Meet the seat

The only function of some chairs is for people to lie back and lounge in them. To help with this, the seat might have a slight tilt, so the front is a little higher than the back. There are places in the home where this can work, but it is usually better if the seat is parallel to the floor, as it is with the Swoon chair.

The height is also vital. You are looking for a model that allows you to sit comfortably with your feet on the ground and knees forming a right angle. Most chairs are about 18 inches (about 46 cm) high at the seat, but you can find models that are higher or lower to match your body shape.

The distance from front to back is also important. If the seat is too deep, it forces you to shift towards the front and lose contact with the back. Too shallow, and it will not support your thighs all the way to the knee. Ideally, you can sit upright with your feet on the ground and the front of the chair just behind the knees.

Basics of backs

When thinking about lounge chairs, there are all kinds of backs on the market. They range from the low versions that barely come up to the armpits to ones that tower over you, sometimes with wings.

The Swoon back is another part of the design landing firmly in the Goldilocks zone. It is high enough to support your head if you lean back, and angled to make sure there are no hard edges. The moulded shell swoops down to arms at a perfect height.

An important design point to note here is the small cushion that slips neatly into the small of the back. It offers vital support to the lumbar area. It is just the right size for most people and makes the Fredericia Swoon chair so soft and inviting that everybody will luxuriate in it.

The Swoon comes in different models, each with the back at slightly different angles to accommodate different environments. The Fredericia Swoon Lounge, for example, lives up to its name, allowing people to lie back in comfort. Shift to the Swoon Lounge Petit, and you find a model with a slightly more upright back. You end with a chair that invites you to unwind, making it conducive both for conversations and for working on your laptop.

The perfect finish

The last element that matters in answering the question “is the Fredericia Swoon chair comfortable?” is to examine the finish. Here, you have a choice between leather and a quality, hand stitched fabric cover in wool, bouclé, velvet or linen. Fredericia covers the cushions in fabric to bring that soft, warm feeling that makes the Fredericia Swoon chair so welcoming. They attach all the cushions firmly — no danger of them slipping off — for extra security.

The legs finish the overall look. They are hardwood — lacquered oak, oiled oak, smoked oak or black lacquered oak — in the lounge model and metal for the single-strut Petite model, which allows it to swivel.

Quality that looks good

Space Copenhagen originally designed the Fredericia Swoon model, which was launched at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in February 2016, with the hotel market in mind. Space Copenhagen says their goal is to balance opposites in a manner they call “poetic modernism”. The idea is to produce designs that balance the need to be functional with an interest in human behaviour.

That means they produce designs that work in the real world. They cater for comfort in furniture that looks stylish and lasts. They have that elusive artistic quality that makes them truly memorable.

Add to that Fredericia’s experience in building high-quality furniture, and you have an item that is both functional and sophisticated. For even more comfort, you can go for the Swoon Chair and Ottoman combination as pictured.

Conclusion

We started by asking a simple question: “Is the Fredericia Swoon Chair comfortable?”. In short, the answer is “yes”. The longer version in the Swoon chair review you have just read, however, has given you an extra understanding of exactly what makes it so good. The art of furniture design means leaving little to chance. Just knowing how many design decisions there are in making the chairs so comfortable builds confidence.

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