mutated chairs grow fur and flesh inside the studio of charlotte kingsnorth

where old chairs begin to change

Inside Charlotte Kingsnorth’s central London studio, discarded chairs wait beside rolls of mohair, carved timber, blocks of foam, and surfaces treated to resemble bark or lichen. Some arrive with recognizable midcentury frames intact. Others have already begun their transformation, their wooden arms disappearing into swollen upholstery as soft bodies gather around the original structure.

The London-born designer has spent more than a decade turning familiar furniture into something harder to name. Her chairs sprout furry limbs, develop heavy bellies, or seem to swallow their own frames. A narrow rail might emerge through the upholstery like a bone, while wooden armrests pierce the surface of a rounded body. Although these objects all retain seats and backs, their proportions suggest animals, figures, and strange domestic companions.

Charlotte Kingsnorth with ‘SPUD’ chair, Gallery FUMI | image via Kane Hulse Studio

charlotte kingsnorth finds character inside a frame

The designer’s ongoing Hi!breed series grew from the fleshy upholstery of her earlier AtOne Sofa, which she developed while studying product and contemporary furniture design. She made the first Hi!breed chair during a 2011 residency in an empty shop in London’s Brompton district, working with few tools and assembling the piece on the floor by stapling and stitching its body together.

The series begins with chairs that have already lived elsewhere. Charlotte Kingsnorth searches for abandoned examples and damaged frames, drawn to the histories implied by worn timber or an outdated silhouette. She studies each one through drawings before building up foam around it, following the character suggested by its posture. The original design remains present beneath the new surface, though its identity becomes tangled with the body growing around it.

Fuzzy hi!breed Dining Set, Charlotte Kingsnorth, 2022. antique chair frame, upholstery, furry textile

upholstery takes over

Conventional upholstery tends to follow the logic of a frame, filling a seat or supporting a back while preserving the furniture’s underlying geometry. Kingsnorth lets the padding escape those limits. Foam pushes through openings, wraps around joints, and forms its own structure, leaving selected sections of timber exposed. Fabric is then fitted over these irregular volumes and stitched by hand.

In the Fuzzy Hi!breed series, mohair encases salvaged chair frames in dense, shaggy coats. Kingsnorth describes an anthropomorphic change that occurs as each frame becomes enveloped, with the hand-stitched textile functioning as the body of the chair. The blue examples resemble a herd gathered around a dining table, their thick legs planted on the floor while wooden arms and rails peek through the fur.

Sundried sæde, Charlotte Kingsnorth, 2021. Teak, Beech, lambs nappa

demanding softness

The forms suggest the looseness of something squeezed or inflated, yet their construction depends on repeated physical adjustments. Kingsnorth carves the foam, checks the silhouette from several sides, and shifts the volume until the chair has developed its own stance. Each skin must then be shaped around protruding timber and deep curves, with seams tracing the irregular anatomy beneath.

A commission for ten Hi!breed chairs pushed that process toward exhaustion. As each chair returned from the upholsterer, Kingsnorth began another cycle of stitching by hand, describing the back-to-back workload as physically consuming. The strain sits beneath the humor of the finished pieces. Their blobs appear spontaneous, though every bulge, opening, and exposed joint has been worked into place.

Cherry Hi!breed, Charlotte Kingsnorth, 2025. dining set. pre-existing chair frames, upholstery, leather

chairs that gather in groups

Kingsnorth often presents these pieces as families. The G Plan Fan Club, commissioned by Objective Gallery in 2022, takes its starting point from the British furniture company associated with the postwar shift away from fully matching suites. Her mismatched chairs gather around a lacewood table, with mottled velvet bodies shaped to occupy a specific curve between its legs. Their upholstery visually merges with the dappled grain of the tabletop, allowing the group to read as a single social organism.

The chairs retain distinct personalities within that shared arrangement. One leans inward, another appears top-heavy, while a third seems to drag its padded body close to the floor. Kingsnorth has described her interest in drawing out the character she sees inside an existing chair. Rather than applying a signature silhouette across every frame, she allows each found structure to steer the direction of its mutation.

Land Before Time, Charlotte Kingsnorth, 2024. hand dyed leather desk with drawer and chair

gentle beasts with familiar bones

This approach by Charlotte Kingsnorth has produced furniture that can feel affectionate and faintly threatening at the same time. Thick upholstery promises comfort, though it also crowds the sitter. Openings might resemble mouths or eye sockets. A chair may appear ready to hold a body, engulf it, or just occupy the room as a body of its own.

The tension is especially present when polished wood remains visible against fur or padded leather. Industrial and mass-produced frames meet an intensely handmade surface, a contrast Kingsnorth has described as central to the series. The timber serves as a recognizable bone structure, carrying the memory of a chair even after its profile has become animalistic.