![Scandinavian Modern etcetera chairs by Jan Ekselius, circa 1969
etcetera was an eye catcher from the start. It seemed like it was made without any pre-designed pattern in mind, without any inspiration from any other piece of furniture and had broken loose from all the conventions of the traditional materials at the time. Jan Ekselius later told those who asked him, that he had tried to capture a piece of nature’s own design, the way it can be manifested in the branches of a tree, in the waves of the ocean or the sand hills of a beach. [source]
At age 24, Jan Ekselius graduated from the Royal College of Art in London. When Jan Ekselius drafted his first sketches of what would later become etcetera, he was fresh, eager, unproven and unbroken by conventions, “almost desperately in search of his own language, trying to stretch the limits and to cross the border put up by designers before him.” He created a prototype after happening upon a new latex-based stretch material, which he soon after abandoned in favor of a polyamide based cotton to use as the chair cover, in combination with a newly developed spring technique popular with the auto industry; the Pullmaflex. He connected the covered spring system to a steel frame and not too long afterwards, his etcetera chair was put into production by JOC Vetlanda, a well-known Swedish furniture factory (which happened to be founded by his grandfather). The chair was then introduced at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in 1970 and was an immediate success - JOC ordered 500 chairs to be produced in time for the fair; by closing day, the complete production had been sold. The last chair officially left the factory in 1979. But by then his etcetera series had won the acclaim of architects and interior designers the world over, and are today highly sought after at auction - an original can fetch upwards of $2500- $3000. Though if you like, you can go straight to the source and buy one brand new, as they are now in production again, and in 24 available colorways.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kp9d7wd6D01qzvxbko1_400.jpg)
Scandinavian Modern etcetera chairs by Jan Ekselius, circa 1969
etcetera was an eye catcher from the start. It seemed like it was made without any pre-designed pattern in mind, without any inspiration from any other piece of furniture and had broken loose from all the conventions of the traditional materials at the time. Jan Ekselius later told those who asked him, that he had tried to capture a piece of nature’s own design, the way it can be manifested in the branches of a tree, in the waves of the ocean or the sand hills of a beach. [source]
At age 24, Jan Ekselius graduated from the Royal College of Art in London. When Jan Ekselius drafted his first sketches of what would later become etcetera, he was fresh, eager, unproven and unbroken by conventions, “almost desperately in search of his own language, trying to stretch the limits and to cross the border put up by designers before him.” He created a prototype after happening upon a new latex-based stretch material, which he soon after abandoned in favor of a polyamide based cotton to use as the chair cover, in combination with a newly developed spring technique popular with the auto industry; the Pullmaflex. He connected the covered spring system to a steel frame and not too long afterwards, his etcetera chair was put into production by JOC Vetlanda, a well-known Swedish furniture factory (which happened to be founded by his grandfather). The chair was then introduced at the Stockholm Furniture Fair in 1970 and was an immediate success - JOC ordered 500 chairs to be produced in time for the fair; by closing day, the complete production had been sold. The last chair officially left the factory in 1979. But by then his etcetera series had won the acclaim of architects and interior designers the world over, and are today highly sought after at auction - an original can fetch upwards of $2500- $3000. Though if you like, you can go straight to the source and buy one brand new, as they are now in production again, and in 24 available colorways.
