Henri-Jean; she has imbibed the details of Artifort’s history over the years. “It was the time of bikinis; it showed the forms so nicely. But not only did we have to figure out how to create the forms, but also the material, which at that time was really new for the furniture industry. That was the international breakthrough for Artifort.”

Instead of attaching the fabric to the furniture section by section, as with traditional upholstery, Paulin worked with Artifort to develop a method more akin to dressmaking: creating patterns, cutting the pieces out and sewing them together. Working the foam covered forms — Paulin describes them as “round, almost feminine” — into the finished cover, an elastic blend of wool and polyester, was, he says, like a woman shimmying into a bathing suit. In 1966, Paulin’s furniture collection was shown in the exhibition “The Face of a Company: Artifort” at the Center for Industrial Design in Amsterdam. It attracted the attention of the international press, catapulting Artifort into the international arena. One person who was thrilled to discover Paulin’s designs was American fabric designer Jack Lenor Larsen. He had also created stretch upholstery fabric, but found no furniture companies with designs to accommodate it. In 1967, he partnered with Artifort to develop Momentum, a print Caprolan nylon fabric, to upholster Paulin’s chairs, which were then available only in solid colors. He added a foam backing for support and to better secure the fabric to the chair. Momentum’s kinetic red and blue swirls brought a new vitality to Paulin’s forms. “Every major furniture producer is working only to satisfy the needs of the middle market,” Larsen complained in a December 6, 1967, article in the New York Times. “They should be spending some time and money experimenting with new ideas in technology which are bound to change the shape of furniture.”

At an exhibition in 1961, Kho Liang Ie saw a chair by the young Geoffrey Harcourt, who was traveling in the United States on a scholarship from London’s Royal College of Art. On his return home to England, he found an invitation from Liang Ie inviting him to design for Artifort. He jumped at the chance. “There were few opportunities available in England to design anything of the quality and innovation required by Artifort,” he recalls. “In the absence of a Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132