Do Zebra butts make you smile?

What's better than an animal print, an animal butt print of course! Zebras are essentially funny horses, so they will always make me smile, and who doesn't love a zebra butt with its swinging tail.

Ok so it's not all butts, and the chair is still very elegant, but the Zebra backside view is definitely what attracted me to this design from British designer Juliet Travers.

I loved this fabric the moment I saw it, but pairing it with the right chair and finding the best way to highlight its whimsical nature was a challenge. I always thought that if I love a fabric, I will be able to make it work... but this chair proved that a vision doesn't always come together so easily.

I knew right away that I needed a second, more muted, fabric to pair with the Zebras, and that's where I struggled the most; do I go with a bright color (I really did consider a hot pink), or tone it down for something that could be more masculine and elegant, I even tried to lean into the safari theme but that was obviously too obvious.

The dark wood stain on the chair, paired with a double-cord brown piping from Houles gave me enough dark tones, and freed me to go with a soft sophisticated grey for the front seat fabric - and besides, nobody wants to sit ON a Zebra butt (or even a Zebra head)!

But the final touch, and what really ties it all together, is the cozy down pillow... featuring more of the cute Zebra's, of course.

With every new chair I design, I realize more and more that this is an art form. Sometimes I feel like a painter; choosing my colors and my canvas, and defining what story I want to tell, what feeling to evoke.

My hope is that the end product is a chair that is calm and inviting, can sit in a corner and hold its own amongst just about any style of decor - a "simple" design that hopefully hides some of the frustration I felt creating it. At the end of the day, the Zebra butts and swinging tails make me happy, and that is what it's all about!