expressive craft and imperfect waste
in collaboration with friends from Portland’s maker community, cia designed an experimental lounge chair using upcycled textile remnants gathered from local garment producers. the chair’s stacked base and use of colorful banding were inspired by the multi-tier “rumba dresses” worn by cuban conga performers, a memory of life in miami. the chi-chi chair was born.
big thanks to the team — chris, tim, tracy, and danika for their talent and help!
making the chair
an abundance of furniture and garment makers in portland means an abundance of textile remnants headed for the shredder or landfill. we pulled a small batch of colorful materials from that waste stream to start the project. initially, the idea was to repurpose the fiberglass shell of an old chair, but the unique stretchiness of each fabric made the tailoring difficult. we pivoted and built the chair’s seat and back from scratch. the new frame allowed us to apply a water-based adhesive and “string-pulls”, an upholstering technique that keeps textiles snug against the inside curves of the seat. for shape-filling and padding, we used recyclable dacron, a bio-foam sheet, and cotton batting. attaching the textiles required an extensive use of hand-knotted and tacked points along the perimeter and back. the chair’s base was fabricated with cardboard sonotube off-cuts, plywood scraps, and wrapped in thick, colored bands of trim.
big thanks to the team — chris, tim, tracy, and danika for their talent and help!
