ECHO DINING CHAIR

Echo is split in two materials: textured fabric across the upper back and a smooth leather panel below it. 50 × 62 × 90 cm, on dark-stained solid wood legs.

Leather on the lower half, and why that is the right way round

The two-material back is the reason to choose this chair, and the split is not arbitrary. The lower part of a dining chair is where the wear happens — the backs of knees, bags, shoes, a dropped fork, the cloth someone wipes it with. Leather takes all of that and wipes clean; a textured fabric does not. Putting the fabric where you lean and the leather where it gets hit is a practical decision dressed as a visual one, and it is why this chair ages better than a fully fabric chair in a room that gets used.

The joint between the two

Where fabric meets leather is the whole piece. The two materials have different thicknesses and pull differently — hide stretches in one direction and not the other, while a woven fabric gives in both — so the seam has to run dead straight across the back with neither material gathering at the join. There is no detail nearby to distract from it, which is why it is the part we judge the chair by.

50 cm wide, 62 cm deep

Narrow enough to put five chairs down a 280 cm table rather than four — allow about 55 cm of table edge per person. Deeper than Bellini at the same width, so you sit back in it rather than on it, and it needs about 75 cm of clear floor behind the table to pull out.

Materials and sizes

50 × 62 × 90 cm. Solid wood frame with dark-stained legs; textured fabric above, leather below. Any of seventy-six leather shades across twelve families, and your own fabric (COM) is accepted, so the chairs can be matched to a sofa or a bench in the same room. Genuine leather only; no faux leather is used in any Sitdesign product. Handcrafted in our Istanbul workshop.

Where it belongs

A dining room in daily use, an upscale restaurant, a meeting room, a hotel. It is the chair for a room where you want fabric but know what a dining chair actually goes through.