I am the lucky owner of an old Vitsoe 620 with high backrest, in gray cotton, from the mid 70es. Amazing armchair, very comfortable. I have disassembled it completely once for washing it, and I am very happy about the concept and quality of the materials used (the pillows and most of the fabric are still in great conditions) . It also looks very good and it's one of those design one does not get tired of, I think.
Now the discussion part.
In my chair, one part the upholstery is warn out and broken, so I was very happy when recently Vitsoe launched the new linen upholstery - before one could only choose leather. So I checked the online catalogue with the idea of maybe purchasing new upholstery for the whole chair.
If one would order the upholstery in linen (without pillows) for the whole chair, this would cost nearly half of buying a brand-new armchair, which is listed in linen at 4200 Euro. What is more, the price difference between linen and leather is minimal, which makes little sense given that leather must be many times more expensive than linen.
Vitsoe has made an effort for associating their name to concepts as durability, design that lasts for generations, buying less but better.
All concepts that are important for those who choose Vitsoe, especially for those customers who pay attention to the environment and sustainability.
While I still appreciate Vitsoe efforts to produce high-quality products - and I truly advice anybody who is considering buying a high-end armchair to buy Vitsoe - I start to think that their price policy on the spare parts does not fit to the values of sustainability, recycle, and re-use. Somehow, spending 2095 Euro for the new linen cases (without pillows) it's a difficult choice. And there must be many old 620 in need for new upholstery out there. So maybe with more attractive prices they would also sell more spare upholstery. But maybe it's not a business in which Vitsoe is interested.
People like me that would like to support Vitsoe with buying original upholstery might refrain from doing so. I would be happy if this message would reach anybody at Vitsoe.
Happy New Year.
I am rather interested in a discussion here than sending an email which won’t change much.
If you had this chair and one pillow was broken, but the rest of the upholstery was still very good, what would you do ? Finding the same fabric is impossible, so at best one would find a similar color but it wouldn’t be a great solution. another possibility is to ask an upholsterer to re-do it all, but you need to find one good enough to make it looking as good as the original ones - there are examples of these chairs re-upholstered for sale and they don’t look amazing...
What do you expect from us? We can't do magic, you already mentioned the options you have.
No magic, thanks. As there are people with good taste here and experience on restoring, it would be nice to hear what other people would do. As for my taste, i could not look at the chair with a part that has a different color. I also would like to hear if anybody has an opinion on why the replacement upholstery is so expensive
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