The Peacock Chair

October 6, 2019 11:34 AM

How this chair became a pop culture icon. Vox YT 7:34
posted by Bee'sWing (17 comments total)

How does a newspaper in rural Texas have the oldest photo of a chair made in the Philippines? 13th Cavalry Regiment was based in Fort Bliss, Texas. It was sent to the Philippines to fight in the war for independence Emilio Aguinaldo fought against the Americans after they took over the country after the Spanish American war. The Harald Post, was still alive in my childhood, an evening paper.
posted by Bee'sWing at 11:42 AM on October 6, 2019 [4 favorites]

How could they leave out Emmanuelle? There's even an album cover...
posted by chavenet at 11:46 AM on October 6, 2019

Fabulous video! That chair always makes me think of Morticia Addams (as mentioned) and Michelle Obama’s prom picture.
posted by 41swans at 11:46 AM on October 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

How could they leave out Emmanuelle?

Uhh common sense and decency so they don't get demonetized on YouTube?
posted by loquacious at 12:20 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

My mother had a chair like that (I suspect she was inspired by Morticia Addams, she was a fan when I was a kid) and I've alway wanted one.
posted by AtalantaPendragonne at 12:55 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

When I was a young punk in Philadelphia an enterprising Street photographer used that chair as part of his set up for portraits. I always thought that was a great idea.
posted by evilDoug at 1:00 PM on October 6, 2019

I had completely forgotten until just now that years ago I snagged a vintage rattan Peacock chair for $50 at a yard sale. It was so huge I had to tie it to the roof of my SUV. While I was struggling to tie it down, three guys in a work truck drove by and offered to move it for me, but I had already blown my yard sale budget on the chair and wouldn’t have felt like I could properly tip them. Who knows where it is now- I abandoned it a year or two later after a bad breakup when I had to move out fast and into a place that couldn’t accommodate its size- but I always hoped that someone with a keen eye found it and made it part of their home. It definitely “brings summer into one’s home”, like the video notes, but this impact is more clear when it’s used in a sunny corner of the home where wall-to-wall carpeting is absent.
posted by nightrecordings at 1:01 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Emmanuelle is in there! Right around 0:54, blink and you may miss it.
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 1:08 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

In the 60s those chairs were found in Polynesian restaurants like these from the Philadelphia area (you can see one in the article photos). I recall being seated in one at my 10th birthday dinner at the Kona Kai. It wasn’t comfortable at all but it really put you in the spotlight. Still my first thought when I see one.
posted by kinnakeet at 2:27 PM on October 6, 2019 [2 favorites]

This is the Official School Photo Chair for public schools across the urban Midwest in the 80s/90s. Indelible.
posted by praemunire at 5:53 PM on October 6, 2019

Somewhere there’s a formal portrait of my mom in one wearing a dark brown or maroon silk jumpsuit. Oh the splendor!
posted by amanda at 5:58 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is the Official School Photo Chair for public schools across the urban Midwest in the 80s/90s. Indelible.

Really? That's the oddest fact in this whole story.

I guess I'm of the right age that I always associated it with Huey Newton.

I feel like I saw this story a couple of years ago. Seems like it would have been here.
posted by bongo_x at 9:54 PM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

Brad Neely would like fifty seconds of your time on this subject
posted by phooky at 10:43 PM on October 6, 2019

One of these was my Offical DM chair for years of Dungeons & Dragons
posted by Mogur at 5:01 AM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

That chair is definitely familiar to anyone who went to a school dance or prom in the 1980s as well (including yours truly.)
posted by vespabelle at 6:56 AM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is fantastic. There is so much history and culture in that chair! I would, no joke, watch a 10 hour documentary series about it.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:14 AM on October 7, 2019 [1 favorite]

That's really nifty! I had no idea and now I want a peacock chair....
posted by sotonohito at 2:29 PM on October 7, 2019