In the lexicon of contemporary design, Faye Toogood has established herself not as a mere stylist or functionary, but as a translator of emotional abstraction into objects of tactile permanence. Her work moves with the poise of sculpture yet lands with the comfort of utility. Trained as a fine artist and shaped by years in editorial styling, Toogood approaches design as both conceptual inquiry and material dialogue.
The Puffy Lounge Chair—her connection with progressive Swedish brand Hem—emerges as a distillation of her ethos: industrial rigour softened by emotional tactility. It is a piece that hums in silence, built as much from intention as it is from leather, stainless steel, and the ghost of British weather.
The chair’s inception was never about flamboyance. Instead, it considers the relationship between body and vessel, between soft and severe, and between permanence and cloud-like comfort. Toogood herself describes the Puffy Series as a meditation on juxtaposition: the hard skeleton and the yielding flesh. And nowhere is this more evident than in the sand leather variant of the Puffy Lounge Chair, where muted warmth and metallic discipline sit in architectural harmony.
Material Meditation: Leather, Steel, and Air
There is an unmistakable sensuality in sand leather. Unlike stark white or aggressive black, sand carries a grounded serenity—evocative of desert dunes, worn limestone, or the blurred tones of overcast skies. In this configuration, the Puffy Lounge Chair feels not manufactured, but unearthed.
The leather itself—tumbled, supple, and uncorrected—offers a surface that absorbs touch. It doesn’t reflect light; it holds it, diffuses it, warms it. Patina is not only anticipated but welcomed. Over time, the sand leather ages not with decay, but with intimacy—each crease a map of occupancy, each blemish a moment remembered rather than erased.
Stainless steel forms the frame, unapologetically exposed and unabashedly industrial. But Toogood does not wield steel like a brutalist; she tempers it. The tubular legs and supports suggest scaffolding, but a scaffolding made for softness. The steel’s mirror-like finish is restrained—more sheen than shine—allowing the frame to recede just enough behind the visual weight of the leather, while still insisting on its structural primacy.
And then, there’s the puff. The air. The negative space that defines the object just as much as its physical materials. The cushions float over the frame, lashed with visible straps, as if temporarily roosted. It is as though the chair might sigh when you sit down. Toogood describes this “interplay between the supporting structure and the puffy upholstery” as a moment of tension—a visual metaphor for vulnerability propped up by discipline.
The Form as Gesture: Sculpture Meets Furniture
What is most striking about the Puffy Lounge Chair is how it performs a gesture without moving. The slightly reclined back, the swelling of the arms, the creased top cushion—these elements do not compete for attention; they operate in symphony, suggesting an embrace rather than a seat.
The arms balloon outward just enough to cradle, but not to enclose. The back cushion folds like a lazy accordion. The entire silhouette offers the appearance of deflation held in suspension—like a luxurious crash into comfort that is forever paused. It’s not quite anthropomorphic, but the chair feels human in temperament. It waits, rather than insists.
Its low-slung profile—roughly 27 inches in height—puts the sitter close to the ground, which heightens the cocooning effect. You do not sit on the Puffy Lounge Chair. You settle into it. Your weight is distributed into the cloud-like forms, but your posture is steadied by the subtle angularity of the frame below. That conversation between body and object, posture and posture-support, is part of the poetry.
Toogood’s decision to expose the straps that tether the upholstery to the steel is also deeply intentional. It evokes utility wear, belted coats, and equestrian harnesses. It lends the piece a kind of honest visibility—nothing is hidden. The bones are shown. The skin is celebrated. And the connection between them becomes design rather than concealment.
Hem’s Craft and Connect: Making the Ethereal Real
To speak of the Puffy Lounge Chair is also to speak of Hem, the Swedish design company that co-produced the piece with Toogood. Hem has quietly revolutionized access to avant-garde design by collapsing the boundaries between designer intent and mass availability. Their collaboration with Toogood allowed the designer to retain her sculptural sensibilities while adapting her vision into a reproducible object.
Each Puffy Lounge Chair is assembled with precision in Europe. The leather is sourced from Italian tanneries committed to sustainable practices; the stainless steel frame is welded and polished by artisans who understand restraint. The upholstery is made from multi-density foam to support softness without sagging—cushions that will evolve, but never collapse.
And while the chair may appear ornamental, it is built for function. The seat depth accommodates a range of postures—legs curled, legs stretched, arms draped. The steel feet are capped with discreet glides, allowing for movement without marring floors. There is a modular universality to the chair that belies its singular aesthetic voice.
Culture: The Domestic Sculpture
To install the Puffy Lounge Chair in a space is not simply to furnish it—it is to curate atmosphere. Whether positioned in a sun-drenched living room or a shadowed corner of a gallery-like home, the chair alters its context with quiet authority. It performs a kind of spatial alchemy, turning air into substance.
Its neutrality, especially in the sand leather configuration, means it doesn’t dictate a palette; it responds to one. It speaks softly in Scandinavian minimalism, adds a nod of subversion in brutalist interiors, and performs like a grounded sculpture in modernist environments.
Yet for all its aesthetic fluency, the Puffy Lounge Chair remains a creature of comfort. It invites occupation. It doesn’t intimidate. It is not a chair that requires you to be fashionable to sit in it—it simply reflects the beauty of rest. In a time when so many design pieces speak of performance, of status, of the digital future, Toogood’s work insists on physicality. On the elemental. On the now.
The Emotional Blueprint: Why It Endures
Toogood’s body of work has often played in the fields of ambiguity—her clothing line, T O O G O O D, explores garments as sculptural cloaks; her early objects channeled domestic relics of the English countryside. The Puffy Lounge Chair, though contemporary in line and luxurious in material, carries these earlier memories with it.
There is something almost pastoral in its friendliness, as if it could have existed in a different century but been reinterpreted for this one. And yet there is nothing antique about it. Its elegance is not precious. Its artistry is not aloof.
The longevity of the Puffy Lounge Chair lies in this paradoxical honesty—it is both experimental and familiar. It wears its intention plainly but asks to be interpreted emotionally. It can live in a penthouse or a farmhouse. It can be used, not just admired.
Ultimately, it doesn’t scream design; it breathes it.
An Object That Holds Space
The Puffy Lounge Chair in sand leather and stainless steel is more than a piece of furniture. It is a meditation on tension and release, on soft landing and strong foundation. It is a container for the body and a companion to the spirit—a vessel for reading, daydreaming, or simply pausing.
In its restraint, it seduces. In its materials, it converses. In its function, it excels.
And in the quiet genius of its lines, it asks nothing more than to be inhabited.
