the story of vitra. about the Eames Lounge Chair  

I think Vitra was giving you a line.
Herman Miller - in the US and Vitra - worldwide are the sole legal makers of Eames products. Herman Miller has gone after some producers of the knockoffs and have stopped them, but, in my opinion, both HM and Vitra was too wimpy about being aggressive. They can stop anyone from selling these pieces if they wanted to.
If you want to save money, the best thing is to buy a second hand real Herman Miller or Vitra chair and ottoman and if they need to, have them repaired.

kaujiter
Here's the deal. The companies selling knock-offs can sell them, but not call them Eames' chairs because the Eames name is trademarked. Vitra is the only authorized dealer in the UK, Europe (and most of Asia, I think). Herman Miller is the authorized dealer in the United States.
The woman at Vitra probably wouldnt be able to tell you anything about the knock-offs because a) there are so many out there, and b)she's not a representative of their companies.
There are many differences in the authentic chairs vs the knockoffs. First is quality. Herman Miller and Vitra chairs are made using very high quality machinery, and very high quality materials.
-The Santos Palisander wood is a form of rosewood. It is sustainably harvested - meaning that it is grown in controlled forests, and new trees are planted in wake of cutting down the old ones. Many of the knock-offs will use other forms of rosewood that may or may not be sustainable.
-Herman Miller uses a high grade aniline dyed leather -its breatheable and good quality - properly taken care of it will last for years and years. Who knows what the other companies may be using for leather quality.
-Herman Miller and Vitra produce the chairs under humane conditions, providing a liveable wage to their employees. Most of the knockoffs come from China, where working conditions are deplorable.
-Herman Miller and Vitra give a portion of the profit of the chairs back to the Eames Office and Eames foundation - which support the legacy of the Eames work including their films, archives, house (which is now a national landmark)etc. The knockoffs profit is just profit.
-Herman Miller and Vitra chairs will have a sustainable resale value - they will always be worth more than a knock-off.

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another link in a while, I've lost it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/28/garden/28KNOL.html

Another thought
Another thought, since the dollar is so weak against the Euro - buy one here and freight it over to Europe?

Good Article
Good article Heath. DWR has since started working with KNoll and now sells only licensed stuff (except, apparently, for the Eileen Gray table)

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heres another older article.
So whats to stop a retailer selling knockoffs to loudly declare (with an instore poster or whatever) that their chairs are not licensed? I don't really think it would deter anyone from buying one.
I'm no supporter of knock-offs but I think Knoll et al are fighting a losing battle here.
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0600/enterprise.htm

every one makes good sen...
every one makes good sense on this issue.
I have worked on every chair at our shop, Lucifersum is right on the wood goods part but the leather is not really correct,
as one who buys leather on a weekly bases from the finest vendors Edelman Spinnybeck, they are the top of the chain , all others are nice, and the leather that goes on all the Herman miller chairs are the same as we buy same price, it is top grade leather, for a $800 up charge you can get edelman,
A lot of leather is coming out of China, very nice, the bull crap that it smells different is bull crap!!
a lot of the leather is cultivated in China and sent to Italy for drumming and refinishing , I will say with out knowledge that most of the Herman miller leather is domestic made in America and is just fine.
I can be added to the list, i do not like the reproductions either, only in the Nelson clocks,
I hate to hear that the chairs are so out of sight, but that must be why the prices have stayed high on ebay, and our business does so good in the Eames lounge chairs ,
when one can get a nice used chair for $1500 to $2000 and a new leather redo with top grade leather for 1200 there must be a reason, a lot are doing it, and for that we are grateful cause they send them our way for a new re upholstery , like some one said save your money cause there is some honor in owning a Vitra or Herman miller,. and every one who owns them knows what they are,

thanks....
thanks for the replies.
It seems like it's very hard for Herman Miller and Vitra to go after those who are selling the unofficial chairs, although i still think it's strange. It's not like the shops are saying "eames style replica", no, they are calling it actual eames.
I understand the arguments, especcially if there's really a difference in quality. Is it also so that the original eames is not made out of solid palisander wood, but that it's plywood with a layer of veneer? And for the leather they are using aniline but as LRF said; this is not the best quality? Can you decide what type of leather the use with vitra. or Herman Miller?
About buying it in the US and shipping it to Europe; this won't do me much good. The chipping costs are enormous and also i need to pay a lot of taxes at customs. That makes it pretty expensive.
I had a certain type of hope; let's say we would have decided that because even vitra. and miller and also making replica's, this would pave the way for me to buy a knock-off...... i won't, but it's pretty tempting i must say. I will probably just wait until my ship with money comes in, because over here in the Netherlands i would have to pay 7000 euro per chair, that appr. 10168 dollar! Just doesn't make sense! :-/

Correct
You are correct - the shells of the chair are a maple plywood with Palisander veneer.
Aniline is the best way to color leather, but there are a lot of other factors about leather that can add to the price: how good the hide is (no scars or scratches), how well it is pared and drummed, how heavily or lightly it is finished.
As to why not go after places calling it "eames" - that costs a lot of money! Imagine waging 200 different lawsuits at the same time. If some of the knock-offs were to get really uppity and start encroaching on Herman Miller sales I'm pretty sure HM would take them to task. In the meantime they rely on people doing research - just like you did! 🙂

I wonder if the furniture are really
powerless to stop the knockoffs of currently available designs. I think it's a matter of how much dough they want to spend to curtail this practice.
If I started selling CDs by Pink Floyd, you can bet your bottom dollar that EMI would go after me bigtime. Similarly, if I put out a knockoff Krups coffee maker or Wustof knife, my name would be mud.
Some of these companies are very aggressive about keeping any product that even looks like theirs off the market.
Even going back to the 1960's when Burke and other companies were knocking off Saarinen's Tulip stuff by making slight variation in the design, I think that Knoll and Saarinen should've had a good case on "intellegical copyright". Now, I DO know that Knoll tried to stop all of the Butterfly chair knockoffs and they lost, but a good lawyer should've been able to make these knockoff companies shrink in their boots.
The knockoff Eames Lounge Chair looks exactly like the originals and they're marketed as Eames. There's all sorts of people hawking Arco lamps and calling them ARCO and Flos stands by doing nothing.
So as long as these companies don't get Interpol involved, it's going to continue.
As stated before, with few exceptions, I don't do the knockoffs.

I wanted to send my
contribution, wrote an extensive reply and by making a typo mistake in my password I lost everything...and it's a little bit too late to start all over again. Maybe I should say this: Each time this subject comes up there seems to be a lot of confusion about the different legislations that regulate teh protection of intellectual property. I am sorry barrympls, but you are wrong in assuming that there is a similar protection for product design as there is for Pink Floyd (protected under the copyright law 50 years after the last day of the year in which the composer or the text writer of the song dies.
Can I ask you a direct question regarding your restauration work. Say I own a Barcelona chair made by a Belgian company by the name of De Coene, say mid fifties...would you re-upholster it for me? That it is a Barcelona is not relevant it could also be a Brno chair or a Eero Saarinen tulip chair for that matter.

makes sense
on the one hand it makes sense that the HM and vitra. don't chase every knock-off selling shop just for the sake of legal costs. This could also mean that they are not totally sure of having the law on their side, like mentioned als also to be found on the internet; it seems hard for the companies with the rights to get the law on their side and stop other from invading their rights. Is there a estimate on howmuch money they lose on the knock-offs?
There must be some kind of research, just like we appr. known howmuch economic damage for instance China is causing with flooding the world with all kind of fake and knock-off articles, this is enormous!
I think i will also use the advice given and look for a not so good looking used chair and refurbish it by maybe re-upholstering it with new leather. Probably if there is something wrong with the shell a craftsman would be able to repair this, at least, i hope so. I saw some with deep scratching, i would like to have this removed.
And about the money; i think if you look at the value it's also a big upside that if you decide to sell the chair, it's still worth a reasonable amount of money. The chair keeps getting more expensive by the year, so in 10/15 years you maybe get the same price for you chair as you paid for it.... i mean, in 10/15 years 7000 euro for the chair will be about 11402 after 10 years and 14552 euro's after 15 years.....(i calculated with a 5% price-increase every year). with 2% it's 8532/9421......... Sound like a good investment to me.... 🙂 The only thing is; what guarentee do we have that in 10/15 years the original eames lounge still has the value, maybe by then the knock-offs have taken over.... 🙁

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Hi Koen, a pitty you deleted your post. I've never really grasped the legal situation in this area.
As an example, lets say I am a glassblower and had some Savoy vase shaped moulds made, I blew the vases and started selling them but I expressly stated that they were not made by iitala, not named 'savoy' vases, not sanctioned and were 'in the style of' Aalto (to use an ebay phrase). Am I in the clear?

by the way.....
if anybody has a pointer of a good deal for the chair somewhere on the internet, i'm very interested! I can be either HM of vitra. I noticed that also for the original there are some price differences, does anyone know a good and not to expensive reseller? If it's a HM i will just have to find out about the shipping- and customs costs from the US to the Netherlands.