[Ad] A chair to last a lifetime – the Children’s Wishbone Chair by Carl Hansen & Søn

Everyone knows Hans J. Wegner’s Wishbone chair – an iconic Danish design that was first created in 1950. The chair, designed for furniture manufacturer Carl Hansen & Søn, is instantly recognisable for its Y-shaped back and tactile, hand woven paper cord seat. I have a matte green one at my dining table and it’s my pride and joy – not to mention the comfiest seat around the table. The sweeping curve of the back just seems to hug the body, while creating a beautiful, sculptural silhouette. It’s no wonder it’s remained enduringly popular over the past (almost) 75 years.

Now the design has been shrunk down and made into a miniature version for little ones. The new Children’s Wishbone Chair is exactly the same as the original, only smaller and suitable for children from the age of three. But I believe it’s a design that shouldn’t just be used and enjoyed for those fleeting years, but passed down and seen as a family heirloom. I hope it’s something that my own three year old daughter will treasure for years to come.

[Ad – this is a paid partnership with Carl Hansen & Søn]

When I was growing up, my family home was filled with antiques and much loved treasures that had seen the passage of time. Furniture was inherited and my mum still has a little children’s chair that was once used by her grandfather. A piece of design was never seen as disposable – our home instead evolved slowly, and if we were ever redecorating a space, we had to mostly work with what we already had. I think somewhere we might have lost sight of this idea of longevity. Now we live very much in the moment, in an era of convenience and quickly overturned trends. So while the Children’s Wishbone Chair is comparatively expensive compared to other children’s chairs, I see it as an investment piece. It is a design, that although small in stature, is built to last.

My own daughter is very lucky to be surrounded by lovely things. Sometimes she says to me ‘we have a lovely home don’t we?’, and although she’s only three, it fills my heart with joy. I want her to appreciate design and take care of her things. I think they’re never too young to be introduced to art or design, whether it’s going to an exhibition, doing some messy play or being part of the process of decorating their room. They definitely learn through imitation, and she’s seen me tidy up and style, or celebrate the little moments at home. And now she does the same! I smile to myself when she puts a blanket over her knees and says ‘I’m so cosy!’ or curates her things on the coffee table just as I would (it was her who piled the little rocks one on top of each other). I hope the Children’s Wishbone Chair is something my daughter will grow up with and fall in love with – as a familiar icon in the home.

Carl Hansen & Søn had been considering doing a Children’s Wishbone Chair for a while. But it took time for the brand’s design team to work out the precise dimensions and make sure the proportions were right. It wasn’t simply a case of scaling down the 14 different components and fitting them together. Even the paper cord had to be refined and made smaller to match the reduced form of the chair.

Just like the adult version, the Children’s Wishbone Chair is made in Denmark – the production process involving over 100 steps, from steam-bending the backrest and sanding down the parts, to weaving the seat by hand using 75m of paper cord. It can take an experienced craftsperson up to one hour to create the seat. I tried it myself at their factory on the island of Funen and it’s much harder than it looks!

The woven paper cord seat is something that Carl Hansen & Søn has become famous for but it was only initially used as a stop gap. When Wegner was designing the chair in the late 1940s, he made use of paper cord when post-war shortages meant that he couldn’t get hold of other materials that would have been typically used for seats, such as leather, textile or wood. Wegner soon endeared himself to paper’s unique properties and a design icon was born. I find the paper cord seat more giving than a hard, solid seat, and I know many people enjoy the natural patina that the paper takes on.

The Children’s Wishbone Chair moves around with us and works in every room of the house. Often we have it in the living room at the coffee table so I can chill and she can have her ‘special’ seat. Otherwise you’ll find it in her bedroom where I’ve created a cosy reading corner with low picture ledges that she can reach herself, zoned by a round rug and comfy cushions. She adores her new chair and is a very lucky girl indeed!

The Children’s Wishbone Chair is priced at £524 and is available in the UK from stores such as Twentytwentyone.