Vitra.

The Jill chair is the result of the first collaborative work by Vitra and Alfredo Häberli. Inspired by the early days of plywood moulding, Jill explores the modern boundaries of this technique while offering a surprising level of comfort.

In the 1940s, Charles Eames became the first person to successfully mould plywood into three-dimensional shapes, which enabled body-conscious, organically shaped seating furniture never resulted in a one-piece seat shell.

Jill is Alfredo Häberli’s formal homage to that time, but with Vitra, he moves the aesthetic forward to today, incorporating the state of the art in plywood technology in an organically shaped seat shell.

In a patented process, Jill’s veneers are curved until they meet in the middle of the seat. This creates a flexible shell featuring an open transition from the seat to the back, with the thickness of its veneer tapering towards the top of the chair, creating a sculptural form that follows the contours of the body, and, thanks to its high degree of flexibility, accommodates it with amazing seating comfort.

The bases for Jill – made of tubular steel, aluminium and wood – impart to the chair a decisively contemporary design – particularly in their powerfully expressive colouring, which is colour-matched to complement the optional fabric covers.

Available: Jill Tube with its tubular steel four-legged base. Jill Wood with its wooden four-legged base.

Available from around July 2012: Jill Fourstar with its four-star swivel base and reverse-direction compression spring