![]() ![]() Mass-market retailers produce similar versions in higher quantities and with lower quality components, usually in places like China and Vietnam, where labor is cheaper and regulations are lenient, and sell them for a fraction of price to way more people. Roughly: Designers come up with an idea, which is then sold in high-end stores, and subsequently seen in the homes of an elite few. To be clear, there are dozens of companies besides Wayfair selling similar wares for similar prices, but they seem to share a common business model. “The only downfall is the back cushion snaps into place with two buttons that often become unsnapped,” Luke from Maryland says in what is still somehow a five-star review. But, as the Surface article points out, you can buy a “Barca Lounge Chair" on the Wayfair-owned AllModern for $1,059.99 - roughly $4,000 less than the original. Like big-name pieces of furniture, it is not available from Wayfair. Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair, a landmark of 20th century design, is made in America with painstaking craftsmanship (Design Within Reach��s ad copy flaunts hand-welting, hand-tufting, AND hand-buffing). The description of Langley Street on Wayfair’s website says it “inspires and celebrates the individual by offering mid-century furniture and home decor items perfect for small-spaces.” If that’s not really your thing, Wayfair also sells pieces by a brand called Corrigan Studio, which says its “seamless silhouettes in chic materials bring authenticity.” Or try Mercury Row’s “collection of inspiring, affordable furniture and décor.” Or head over to, “your home for affordable modern design.”Īgain, aesthetic concerns seem to be the thing reviewers on Wayfair care most about. As Wanyi from Mississauga puts it, “It is not super comfy but not uncomfortable for me either. Consumers are so used to inexpensive things being bad that mediocrity doesn’t stop them from rating them as perfect. It’s not so much the straight-up negative reviews (“soon as we opened the product, it smelled like horse’s dung SO BAD”) as all the hedges: “It’s not the most comfortable, but I can definitely sit on it for a while” “Overall i would recommend this couch to people who don’t have a lot of money” “The plastic middle support legs are a bummer but not too worried about it.” These are all from five-star reviews. But read the reviews and, fittingly for a convertible, something lackluster unfolds. Out of a possible five-star ranking, it scores a 4.25 based on 3,938 reviews, which makes it seem wonderful. Search for “mid-century modern sofa” on Wayfair and the current top result is the Cobbs Convertible Sofa by a brand called Langley Street, now on sale for $268.99 (45 percent off!). So it should come as little surprise that much of this furniture isn’t great. ![]() Wasteful though it may be, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to buy an expensive sofa if you don’t know where you’ll be living in a year. As a 2018 Surface piece on knockoff designs points out, there’s a huge consumer base out there “in search of something that ‘just looks nice.’”įast-furniture manufacturers capitalize on this desire by giving shoppers an opportunity to buy trend-informed furniture at a price that doesn’t force them to pretend they’re investing in the future. In between my friends’ posts are ads from these same companies. My Instagram feed is filled with stylish interiors, much of them furnished by trendy, affordable sites like Wayfair and Houzz, plus giants like Amazon and Wal-Mart. To be clear, it’s not like I’m reading books about Bauhaus or saving up for an Eames chair (I had to Google to figure out who my chairs are ripping off), but I am concerned with having a cool couch in a way I never thought I could be.Ī quick glance into my peers’ more-adult apartments shows I’m hardly alone in this inclination. ![]() What happened? I got a little older, started making slightly more money, and found myself caring about furniture. Not so long ago I was happy to work from a $30 Target computer chair, but today I wouldn’t dream of keeping such a bleak object in my apartment, no matter how comfortable. I could move to my Milo Baughman-style armchair, but frankly the situation there is even worse, as the extended seat cushion and rigid top rail mold my posture into the shape of the letter Ç (the cedilla is my legs). I am writing this from an imitation Arne Vodder dining chair that is roughly two inches too short for my Ikea table, forcing me to keep my arms elevated at an unnatural height, while also leaving my neck and shoulders dangerously hunched. ![]()
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