a) all the new furniture is expensive. the better it is, the more prohibitively expensive it is. the armchair that is considered "affordable" costs more than thousand dollars very often. and the quality can be mediocre at best. so other manufacturers, higher end ones, probably think "why should we price our products the same if they're much better?" I'd think that if I was them.

b) a chair is widely considered one of the most difficult pieces of furniture to design and construct. a set of new dining chairs in a chain store will often cost you an arm and leg. hence the reason I hunted for couple months Craigslist like crazy to find mine. They're older than me-but they look better than the chairs I'd be able to afford otherwise, and are of much, much higher quality than new chairs that I'd be able to afford. The prices go up, the quality goes down-that's something I see happening with furniture, clothes, you name it.

c) they used walnut-a very expensive wood. they used lots of real fur, they used nice metal and designed it elegantly. these are good chairs. whether one likes the style or not

it doesn't often matter just how it looks(there's plenty of knock offs of everything, in every price range)..it matters how it's made and how it feels

you can't also see the fine details on the picture

so you order something-say a mirror or a lamp-they looked cool on the website yet when you see them up close you understand they were made in a very cheap way. the finish is just bad. etc.

So. are they worth 9000 each, these chairs? no I don't think so. LOL.

but I also don't think that whatever costs much much much less in other stores is actually worth it. nowadays. there might be exceptions.

also, the markups are often ridiculously high

together with that, since the home was designed professionally-they didn't cost the same as their list price on website. designers have their discounts and special prices. we don't.

I agree with palimpsest.

i have a live example-the chandelier that looks like one of mine, same glass exactly, same provenance, a bit different design-costs 9000 on 1stDibs

Mine, I got for 70 bucks from some older folks that probably got rid of their parents' stuff. Also, Craigslist ad.

It's a very nice chandelier.

Yet when I bought it I had no idea what it is, and for how much it can get listed for. It was just a very happy looking chandelier that I liked a lot. It had character, and colors I love.

The rest, I found out much later. I go on 1stDibs website sometimes-just to look lol. I saw it by mere chance. I was in shock.

PS I have 4 pairs of new AG jeans I don't really need-they were sent to me and thousands others who purchased their jeans between year such and such, as a compensation, part of a settlement deal. Since AG writes on all the jeans they make "Made in USA". While it appears that at least partially, it's not true.

Had huge consequences for the company. and rightly so. of course I want to support somebody who makes nice things locally. "Made in USA" does influence me.

I also read that often things that come to us very cheap were created by people that are treated very poorly, as workers.

I'm also sure that some things that come to us being more expensive were actually still created by people who are treated pretty poorly.

I can only hope things are actually often better than what I read sometimes.

A truly high end chair can cost more than $5000 net ( price designer pays) and that's without fabric. It's hard to find a to-the-trade fabric for less than $100 @ yd, again net. A chair can take 8-10 yds of fabric. So one is getting close to $8000 for one chair.

This is exactly why I've always hung on to old upholstered (75 yrs and more) furniture. It was built with hardwood frames that were dense and wide enough to be able to be reupholstered multiple times and even restyled. A good upholstery shop will use far better springs than those found in most furniture today. Top quality cushions will last far longer.

High end furniture is very, very costly and only for the few unless one can find a good local upholstery shop that can build frames and knows what they're doing. One might end up paying $3000 for such a chair, much depending on the cost of the fabric.

These seem like rip off Hollywood brand name prices to me. First, I personally wouldnt use a chair with lamb wool. It might sound silly, but thinking of the baby sheep... Second, that homnature store really looks like a rip off. I cannot believe their prices for vintage items. Some of those look like unattractive junk garage sale finds, made by no designer in particular. This store must have the in with the Hollywood / LA wealthy crowd who pay money for a recognized brand just to show that they have the money. I might might be wrong though. Maybe those ugly lamps in the vintage section really are worth 4800.

i checked the website-they're crazy

but maybe not that crazy -obviously the're able to sell the stuff

not so sure about the need to show they have the money-even i know they have money, and to watch reality shows to me is as interesting as watching the paint to dry.

i tend to agree with palimpsest-there are very few people that can spend this kind of money as easily as if i was doing grocery shopping. very few-but probably enough for that shop to be profitable

rockybird,

I don't think the chairs are upholstered in wool attached to the skin, I think this is upholstery similar to a flokati rug, the wool is on a backing. For what it's worth that is an authentic mid century style of upholstery.

Again, I don't think these prices would impress anybody in their social milieu. These are people who have millions of dollars in jewelry and give $300,000 cars to each other as gifts. They probably spend $1000 for dinner fairly regularly. $4000 for a pair of lamps is like us paying $40, probably, maybe even $4.

I think that the pricing at nearly all of the stores these days is a scam. The quality of the construction is just not enough to justify the difference. You are paying a premium so that you can show (and tell your guests) that you are one of the "haves" as opposed to one of the "have-nots." I would personally rather buy used off of craigslist (or similar) something that I really enjoy and pocket the difference as it means that I can retire earlier should I so desire. It is as close as I will ever get to being able to buy time, time is more valuable than home furnishings.

Looking at just this sofa, put me in the impressed crowd. Hand built in North Carolina, custom requests taken, locally grown hardwood (ash, which is getting more and more difficult for the furniture industry to source), natural woven fabrics, and look at the seams. Perfectly straight, smooth, no lumps or bumps, real pleating, not just seams sewn to look like pleats, and no wadded up machine stapled corners that look like they were done by the third shift on a Saturday night.

The Wilshire Sectional

Also, enough people are willing to pay for the percieved value- or name- on these pieces. I make 50k a year; I think it's all crazy.

I am not in the demographic that can or will pay those prices, but I assume there may be a difference between list price/retail and what somebody pays, especially if somebody has connections or a working relationship with the establishment.

The interior design world is NOT like the fashion industry which provides the rich and famous with free clothes! Yes, if a house is likely to be photographed by one of the top shelter magazines, the designer may get an extra discount or perhaps even something free, but trust me, these savings are NOT passed on to the client. No, I am NOT in that group of designers but I have friends who are and now the business very well.

Clients pay a king's ransom of have their houses done. And many sell the houses furnished when they tire of them (and they tend to tire very quickly) and start over yet again with another house to decorate and furnish.

I would say from watching my upholsterer(now deceased) do it, fine upholstery is made like a very tight slipcover where it's all sewn together and fitted onto the piece. Typical factory upholstery now is done on the frame with staples, cardboard strips and metal tack strips. Not the same thing at all.

I don't know what I am going to do about the pieces I have waiting to be upholstered because 1) I have to find someone who upholsters the old way and 2) I am going to have to be able to afford it--he wasn't all that expensive in the scheme of things. I may learn to love the sofa in peach toned 1980s flamestitch and the love seat in coral mohair just the way they are.

So I went through the website for homenature a little more closely. The prices seem to be all over the place, but some of them dont seem terrible. $3750 for a sofa doesnt seem too off the charts. However they are clearly copying some midcentury designs - I see an almost exact replica of a Finn Juhl chair. I still don't understand their vintage prices. They are thousands of dollars too high. But I guess the uber wealthy may not know any better.

I was commenting mostly about the accessories part i must say. i visit a lot, a lot of websites, and i love accessories, so i know things they list might be relatively very expensive. but most of their prices were very obviously blown out of any reasonable proportion, with great aplomb lol.

Chairs and sofas are a bit different story. Some things you can see, as lines, fabrics, etc. Some, you can be sure of only after you saw it IRL, and tried to sit on it. So I'm much less surprised with their prices on furniture because furniture, as was already mentioned, is extremely costly when done well.

The only new table I happened to really, really love when circling the local stores(I must say I didn't know yet about many, and didn't know vintage ones-I gradually found out all that information as I read more and more, and knew where to go) was ..embrace yourself..12000(twelve thousand) dollars. No chairs, just a table.

Rockybird,

Not to single you out, this is just a discussion, but I don't think it's a matter that the uber wealthy don't know any better, it's that to them it doesn't matter, because it's not a lot of money to them. I think the prices are very inflated for some of the Lane or American of Martinsville, in particular, because that was just plain old decent furniture when it was new, it was knockoffs of something else already.

My niece worked in the corporate offices of a restaurant group, and she said they had clients who regularly spent $500-$1000 on dinner per couple just on a regular going-out-to-eat night. (They kept track of the big spenders). These people are pooping or peeing out hundreds of dollars, to put it bluntly, on a regular basis, and it doesn't matter, because there's always more money where that came from.

Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and a couple other people collectively drove the auction prices of Stickley and other American Craftsman furniture through the roof in the late 80s or early 90s because they were interested in it, and a small group of people were competing for the same pieces and any one of them could pay $100,000 for a sideboard if they really wanted it, so they did. Once people like that were no longer interested and paying prices like that, the prices leveled off.

I am also not sure that Finn Juhl is a great example of reasonable pricing. This piece, new, at Design Within Reach is $13, 503

--and some people would rather pay more for an "original", although since this is a licensed piece made to specs, I don't know that this is any less original than an old one--they are the same thing.

Yes I agree Pal. The wealthy probably dont care. I am going to guess that store name also has some stigma. I agree that Finn Juhl is expensive at dwr, but at least its licensed. I would never spend 13k, though. There's two vintage chieftan chairs on 1st dibs for 36k.

Thank you all so much for sharing your opinions with me. I suppose my main problem with the furniture is not so much the cost, but the fact that I find it so ugly looking, but different taste is what makes the world go around.

I remember a number of years ago seeing a reality show with Ozzy Osbourne and his family. While I didn't really watch it, I recall being very impressed with the home they lived in. It was designed in a gothic-castle type way and it was absolutely beautiful, at least to my eyes. I can't find photos of it, but I could imagine that sort of décor being very expensive but in a more justifiable way.

I've always felt the same way about Andy Warhol, I just don't get it.. Apparently lots of people do though:) Mid century modern seems to be the rage right now but I've never really been able to appreciate it. My taste has always been towards Victorian type rooms.

Well..it's a totally different topic then.

I don'l like Miro-but it doesn't mean his paintings don't deserve to be in museums. It means only that I personally don't like Miro

(I remember a home of Ozzy Osbourne, saw it in a book..I think it was done by Martin Lawrence Bullard. Not sure it's the same home you saw. I remember being amused by very strong so called feminine vibe..tenderness, soft colors..it was total opposite from what I'd expect. But that what made me remember it:) The seeming contradiction of a person how we perceive him-and his home.

There's pretty fascinating book, "To each his home"..it consists of very interesting, some very happy, some weird and a bit disturbing, homes, and interviews with their owners..I highly recommend it to everyone who's interested in this connection between people and homes that they create. It's often not that predictable.

(Miro also didn't just paint strange shapes and lines in bright colors. I read a bit of what it meant to him, also in a book. So I can't say I started loving his works, no..but they became more intriguing to me. This book gave me the opportunity to glimpse beneath the surface.)

It's much more difficult to properly engineer and build a viable modernist chair than it is a Victorian style chair. Anything that is minimal where everything is visible and there are no decorative elements to hide anything are actually much more complicated, usually, than something very heavy and complex looking.

You could build a reasonable looking and functioning Victorian style overstuffed chair with 2x4s, metal springs, cardboard and a lot of stuffing with some elaborate manufactured trim to decorate it with, if you had the proper tools. A chair with minimal structure is much more difficult.