Vintage rattan coquille armchair PU011

The rattan coquille armchair, the sacred icon of vintage rattan from the 1960s

It's no coincidence that the idea of combining two rattan circles to make a seat originated in the Netherlands after the war. Rattan from Indonesia, a Dutch colony at the time, entered Europe via Rotterdam. It was then processed in Noordwolde, a small town in Friesland, which specialised in rattan furniture and whose expertise was recognised throughout Europe. In a break with the woven rattan armchair that reigned unchallenged until the 1950s, a new way of manufacturing was born on the spot. It was an ingenious invention: two intersecting circles, upholstered with fine rattan strips called ‘fillets’, judiciously spaced to form the seat line, on a simple base - and that was it! This seemingly innocuous silhouette is not as simple as all that to assemble. A lot of skill and a minimum of equipment (steel moulds) are needed to overcome the main difficulty: bending a perfect circle, otherwise the rattan coquille armchair will be wobbly.

Quick to manufacture (once the know-how had been mastered), all the rattan furniture workshops in Europe reproduced the technique. The rattan coquille armchair became the generic model that every rattan craftsman must master.  The vintage coquille rattan armchair was to sweep across Europe and become one of the symbols of the carefree joie de vivre of the 60s. In the 60s and 70s, KOK was the number one manufacturer of rattan coquille armchairs in France, Pieter KOK having himself come from Noordwolde before he moved to Halluin! Tens of thousands of shell armchairs came out of our workshops to stock the shelves of Parisian department stores and all the basket shops in the provinces.