Vitra | Furniture, Lighting, Home Accessories | Innes

Vitra began in 1950 as a family business in Birsfelden, near Basel in Switzerland. On a trip to the USA in 1953, its founder Willi Fehlbaum came across the chairs of Charles and Ray Eames and decided to become a furniture maker. Four years later Vitra signed the licence to make their designs for Europe.

More than seventy years on, the Fehlbaum family still runs the Vitra furniture company. It calls its designers "Authors" and works with them for decades, keeping classic pieces in production while adding new ones. Its Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, just over the German border from Basel, is home to the Vitra Design Museum and buildings by some of the world's leading architects.

Vitra was founded three years after Innes opened its doors in 1947 and both are now third-generation family businesses. Innes has worked with Vitra for more than 25 years as an authorised UK dealer, and you can see key pieces in our showroom in Hessle, East Yorkshire.

Vitra has made the designs of Charles and Ray Eames since 1957 and it is the only authorised maker of Eames furniture for Europe and the Middle East, which includes the UK. The best known Vitra Eames chair is the Eames Lounge Chair of 1956, with moulded plywood shells, leather cushions and a matching ottoman.

The Eames Plastic Chairs, first shown in 1950, brought the idea of a moulded one-piece seat to dining and kitchen tables, and come on wooden, wire or metal bases. The Aluminium Group of 1958 stretches the seat between two cast aluminium side frames and is still one of the most comfortable office and dining chairs you can buy.

Browse the full Eames Collection or read more about Charles and Ray Eames.

Verner Panton spent years looking for a way to make a chair from a single piece of plastic. Vitra helped him solve it, and the cantilevered Panton Chair went into production in 1967. Read more about Verner Panton.

Jean Prouvé came to furniture as an engineer and metalworker, and it shows. His Standard Chair of 1934 puts its strength in the back legs, where the load falls. The Guéridon table of 1949 was made for the University of Paris, and the Compas desk takes its name from its compass-like steel legs. Read more about Jean Prouvé.

Vitra chairs cover every room. Explore Vitra dining chairs, Vitra lounge chairs and Vitra office chairs.

Isamu Noguchi began making his Akari light sculptures in 1951. Each one is made by hand in Japan from washi paper stretched over a bamboo frame, and Vitra produces a selection of them. Noguchi also designed the glass-topped Noguchi Coffee Table.

George Nelson's wall clocks, from the Ball Clock to the Sunburst, are some of the most cheerful pieces of mid-century design, and a Vitra clock is often the first Vitra piece people buy. The Eames House Bird is based on an old folk-art bird the Eameses kept in their home in California.

See all Vitra Lighting, Vitra Accessories and Gifts by Vitra.

The range splits into three main sections. For dining, start with the Vitra dining chairs, from the Eames Plastic Chairs and the Panton Chair to Prouvé's Standard Chair, then pair them with a Vitra dining table such as Prouvé's Guéridon in solid oak or walnut.

For the living room, the Eames Lounge Chair sits alongside Vitra lounge chairs such as the Grand Repos, and Vitra sofas, each made to order in your choice of fabric or leather. For the home office, the Aluminium Group and Vitra's task chairs pair with the Compas desk. Many other categories are covered, including Lighting with Noguchi's Akari, as well as Clocks, Accessories, Storage Solutions and Bar Stools.

Come and see many of these pieces in the Innes gallery in Hessle.