Celebrating ten years since the design was launched, Philippe Starck’s design for Kartell continues to win fans

Having once declared that “Design is Dead”, the (perhaps hasty) Philippe Starck is this year celebrating the 10th birthday of one of his most enduring designs.

The Louis Ghost Chair, rather impressively for its time, managed to shrug off the trial of trying to outdo and go one better than its competitors in outlandish form and scale – Starck looked instead to versatile readily available materials that would allow a contemporary audience to rediscover a typology that had all but been relegated to the dusty annals of antiquity.

Today, the chair is the most widely sold design chair in the world, with sales in excess of 1.5 million pieces worldwide and more than 15,000 units in Australia alone, indeed Louis Ghost is proving as popular today as when it was launched.

Having enjoyed immense popularity in residential, hospitality and commercial applications, the injection moulded chair has also delved into myriad limited edition releases and presented itself in some memorable customized guises.

In celebration of the chairs first decade, manufacturer Kartell has produced a limited edition, 10th Anniversary chair that will be available in Australia from December 2012.

Keeping with the popular, transparent model of the chair, Starck’s signature has been engraved onto the oval of the backrest and a mark of authenticity will denote each unique special edition seat.

Though sub-standard imitations may be widespread, it is important to mention that Kartell’s Louis Ghost chair is available exclusively within Australia from Kartell’s flagship Bondi Junction store in Sydney as well as Space Furniture in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Whilst design may well be dead, this little ghost looks to be sticking around for some time yet.

Kartell

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