Bentwood chairs and stools have long been in fashion.

Arguably the best design for durability, functionality and beauty, Bentwood furniture is found throughout the globe; synonymous with coffee shops and French Bistros.

Also known as a Thonet chair, the process of steam bending wood for the bentwood look, although around for two centuries prior, was mastered in the mid 1830s by Michael Thonet, a German-Austrian Cabinet maker.

The bentwood process mastered by Thonet, takes lightweight but strong wood such as beech, steaming the wood in steam boxes before using steel frames and clasps to manually bend the wood into the desired curved shape.

Thonet soon set up his first factory, and exhibited his first design the no. 14 chair at the 1867 World Exhibition in Paris where he earned a gold medal for design. Demand soon began to grow, and the chair once simply and modestly called no. 14 has been sold over ten million times, known more famously as the classic bentwood chair.