Ghost Chair Hunting

High or low, original or repro, there is more than one way to track down Philippe Starck’s iconic chair that isn’t there.

SHOPPING AROUND | If asked to select one chair to represent the first decade of 21st century design, a lot of interior designers would point to the instantly recognizable Louis Ghost chair. Designed by Philippe Starck and introduced to the world in 2002, this elegant item, made of high-impact thermoplastic, is a cleaned-up contemporary take on another icon, the ornate 18-century French Louis XV chair.

Not only is Starck’s rethink novel and witty—a chair that isn’t there, so to speak—it’s emblematic of the ongoing trend in design towards combining obviously disparate design periods and styles to create an eclectic look for an interior, which is what’s been accomplished in the room shown here from the popular British website House To Home. With the Ghost chair, Starck has managed to charmingly convey dissimilar centuries in a single piece of ultramodern furniture.

Seeing Ghosts

The Ghost chair, manufactured by Kartell, comes in a number of both solid and transparent colours, and its extreme popularity has spawned offspring, the Lou Lou Ghost, a tiny version of the Louis Ghost for children, and the Victoria Ghost, an armless version of the Louis.

The price for a Louis Ghost appears to be similar both in Canada and the U.S. ($412 at Inform Interiors in Vancouver, and $410 at Design Within Reach in Portland). You can find discounted Kartell Ghost chairs online at Made In Design in England for $288 each (if you buy four), but you will need to have someone ship them for you, or have Made In Design send them by TNT (works out to around $367 a chair).

There are also plenty of reproduction versions. We found transparent Ghosts on wirehome.ca, an import company with an appointment-only showroom in Richmond. They have the Louis for $159 and the Victoria for $149. They also sell other iconic reproductions like the Bertoia chair ($139), Hans Wegner’s Y-chair ($179) and the Paton ($99). —C. Rule

Photo: www.housetohome.co.uk