A Little History About Charles Eames Lounge Chair

Ray and Charles Eames Lounge and Ottoman. More Like Otto-woman! The Great Gatsby is a favorite of mine, as it puts me right into the time period that I think I would fit into the best, aside from the fact that women had fewer rights and even the most privileged and educated could have it all shattered in one fell swoop just by forgetting to take their birth control pill…oh wait, they didn’t have any. Notwithstanding those inconvenient truths, the fact remains that the styles and influences of the 30’s through the 50’s just look so well to me.

Ray Eames was one of the notable woman at that time, she collaborated with her husband in assorted varieties of projects ranging from film production to furniture production. Known for many of their creations their everlasting masterpieces were in the field of furniture designing, one of the best pieces made is the creation of Eames lounge & ottoman. Ray is photographed right alongside Charles working on the Eames chair lounge, now also known under the name of Eames Miller chair. She didn’t simply sit back and allow her husband to call the shots, she proactively contributed to both the design and production of the Eames chair & ottoman. Charles confirmed himself to be rather of a renaissance man, and a progressive one at that, not insisting on complete credit for the Eames lounge & ottoman, but elegantly credited his wife for her help.

The Eames chair & ottoman can be seen as a sign of the newly burgeoning era of triumphant women in the work place. It took men, as soldiers, and women, like Rosie the Riveter, working together to support the war endeavor, as it took Ray Eames to complete the Eames Miller chair as we see it today.

Eames lounge & ottoman gone on to turn into one of the most well-liked high-end office sets ever. The Eames chair lounge was a representation of cool headed attainment. On entering an office furnished with an Eames lounge and ottoman, a prospective client, without even realizing it perhaps, would feel that they were dealing with a real power player.

After years of toiling they manufactured this chair for the furniture company they worked for, Herman Miller Ray and Charles Eames chair lounge was a true imaginative cooperation between a man and a woman in a time when that was scarce. In my mind, Gatsby probably lounged on his Eames chair & ottoman, staring out over the bay at the East Egg, pining for Daisy. Don’t worry about my fantasy and the essentially in order synchronicity of the book and the invention of the Eames Miller chair matching up. I surely am not. It’s about as plausible as a husband and wife getting along for adequate time to create the Eames lounge and ottoman.

Like Charles, Gatsby never let reality get in the way of his dreams, while Daisy’s sentiment was sullenly melancholy, pouting, "… the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

Good thing Ray Eames was no Daisy.