Last year, Matter & Order was invited to participate in Chicago Home + Garden‘s first ever Chairs for Charity event, where 15 Chicago-area designers including Larry Vodak of Scout, Julia Buckingham Edelmann of Buckingham Interiors, Kara Mann of Kara Mann Design, and Monica Pedersen of HGTV, among others, were asked to take a vintage chair, give it a new life, and donate it to be auctioned off with all of the proceeds benefiting Designs 4 Dignity.
For our entry, we took a flea market found valet chair from the 1950′s – the exact same chair in Don Drapers old bedroom on AMC’s Mad Men – nickle plated it (courtesy of Precision Finishing, Inc.), built a plush new seat (courtesy of Covers Unlimited), wrapped it in Indian silk fabric (courtesy of Gregg Fishman of Fishman Fabrics), and topped it off with a Jason Lewis-made base and walnut tray for keys, cufflinks, cigar cutters, etc., completely transforming a chair in despair into a smart, functional, and classic manly throne entitled, The Happiest Man.
Then, to give this new chair the attention it deserved, we put together a little photo shoot with some friends, including gifted photographer, Lindsay Gallup, fashion designer Anastasia Chatzka and her stunningly beautiful clothing lines, her then business manager and stylist, Sean Moran, vintage hair and makeup specialist Angelica Rivera of Tigerlilie Salon, and (first-time) model, the lovely Agnieszka Haligowska. We all had a blast creating Mad Men inspired imagery to represent the underlying theme of the event: the transformation of the old into new. And among a packed house at the Tile Gallery on November 3rd, with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres being served from some of Chicago’s finest restaurants, the auction raised over $10,000 for an incredible organization and an amazing cause.
Outtakes of “The Happiest Man” photo shoot:
Postcards we printed and distributed around the city to promote the event:
Coverage of the event in Chicago Home + Garden:
This year’s event, benefiting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, promises to be just as exciting and fruitful with chair designs from Karen Kalmek of Green Home Chicago, Morlen Sinoway of Morlen Sinoway Atelier, Cody Hudson of Struggle Inc., and HGTV Host & Author, Frank Fontana, just to name a few. So get your tickets to the second annual Chairs for Charity here, and don’t miss out on your chance to bid on and own a one-of-a-kind chair and work of art, all the while helping support yet another great cause! November 2, 6 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., Chicago Art Source, 1871 N. Clybourn Ave.
