World's comfiest armchair gets new look designer covers

Iconic armchair brand Maker & Son and Sydney design gallery Studio ALM are collaborating for the first time.

Mayen (far left) Japan (centre) and Shake Your Move, far right

At the centre of the collection is the Maker & Son armchair, often referred to as the most comfortable chair in the world. Designed to be kept for life, the armchair now offers a new kind of reinvention: the ability to change its cover without changing its essence. Permanence meets play.

For this collaboration, Studio ALM drew inspiration from the Powerhouse Museum’s recent exhibition of Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson, as well as the bold graphic language of Sonia Delaunay and Jean-Charles de Castelbajac. This spirit continued with Swiss textile brand ZigZag Zurich, whose Pop Memphis energy and community-driven ethos encouraged a fearless approach to pattern and texture.

From these influences emerge fabrics that are graphic, textured and charged with spirit; Merino wools and cottons, some hand-dyed in Senegal through rural cooperatives. Each fabric is more than just material: it represents work, dignity, and time made visible – and, once transformed into a cover, brings the joy of reinvention stitched straight into the seams.

Maker & Son x Studio ALM covers can be chosen to reinvent a much-loved armchair or to create an entirely new one. The fabric designs are:

Mayen by Kleopatra Moursela – evoking alpine landscapes through geometric harmony.

Gate and Japan by Nathalie Du Pasquier & George Sowden – founders of the Memphis movement. Gate is a bold grid of inverted green checks, while Japan showcases pared-back geometry on a field of blue.