ATHENA CORNER SECTIONAL SOFA

Athena is the corner sofa specified around one thing: upholstery that keeps its shape. Clean lines, a corner layout, and cushions built to look the same in ten years as on the day they arrived.

What actually makes a cushion keep its shape

This is the only part of a sofa that fails in a way everyone notices, and it is decided before any fabric is chosen. A cushion holds its form when it has a high-resilience foam core that springs back instead of compressing, a fibre or feather wrap that can be plumped without the core deforming, and a cover cut tight enough to hold the shape rather than loose enough to wrinkle. A soft feather-only cushion is lovely for a month and then needs plumping every single day — which people stop doing, and the sofa looks tired within a year. On a corner sofa it shows twice as fast, because a settled cushion sits next to one that has not settled.

Clean lines, which is the exposed way to build

A straight-lined sofa has no roll, no skirt and no shaping to absorb a small error, so the seat line has to run level along the whole length, the gaps between cushions have to be identical, and the back has to stay flat without a dip. There is no detail to look at instead — which is why it is the version that shows the making rather than hides it.

Left-hand or right-hand — settle this first

The corner is handed and cannot be swapped once made. Stand where you come into the room, face the sofa, and tell us whether the long side runs away to your left or your right; send a plan with the door, the window and the television marked. This is the most common ordering mistake in corner sofas and the one we cannot correct afterwards.

Materials and sizes

Made to order; overall dimensions depend on the configuration and are confirmed with your quotation. Fabric or leather — any of seventy-six leather shades across twelve families — and your own fabric (COM) is accepted, so the sofa can be matched to a bench or dining chairs in the same room, from the same batch. Genuine leather only. Handcrafted in our Istanbul workshop.

Where it belongs

A contemporary living room in daily use, an apartment, a hotel suite, an office lounge. It is the sectional to choose when the sofa has to still look right after several years of real use.