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lways brimming with spectacular finds and lots of inspiration, Jayson Home in Chicago been a must-visit for design obsessives in the Windy City and beyond for more than 30 years. In addition to new pieces, Jayson Home also offers a curated selection of one-of-a-kind antiques and vintage items, which chief creative officer Devin Kirk collects from flea markets and fairs around the world.
Devin Kirk inspects chairs at the Villeneuve flea market in Avignon, France.
Joanna Maclennan
Napoleon III chairs are an especially prized find for their silhouette and small scale.
Joanna MaclennanAfter a recent trip to Provence yielded a treasure trove of upholstered antique furniture, Kirk partnered with Schumacher to recover them in the fabric house’s signature textiles. (You can find the finished pieces at Jayson Home’s Chicago store, jaysonhome.com, and in Schumacher Design Shops in Charlotte and Nashville.) Inspired by this artful juxtaposition of old and new, we wanted to know more about how Kirk pulled it off. From choosing the right furniture to finding fabrics that proved totally transformative, here’s how.
FREDERIC: What appeals to you about buying antique upholstery and reINVENTING it?
Devin Kirk: There is an intangible magic to antique and vintage seating that is next to impossible to replicate in new furniture. Often it’s the scale. Sometimes it’s the patina of the frame, whether it’s chippy paint or worn wood. A lot of it is an attention to detail and craft that is just hard to come by these days—they don’t make them like they used to! Most of the time, these pieces aren’t the thing for binge-watching TV, but just about every room benefits from an antique chair or two as a foil to more loungey seating.
How do you evaluate whether a piece is worth redoing? Is it mainly about the condition of the frame?
Of course, it’s ideal if it’s sturdy overall to keep the makeover bill low. Aside from silhouette, the biggest thing we look for when we’re hunting flea markets is that the springs are in good shape. Replacing hand-tied springs can get quite costly. Other than that, almost anything is fair game since we always redo the cushions anyway.
When it comes to the frame, we almost never do more than clean up the finish as the patina is usually what makes us fall in love with the piece. That’s timeworn honor! We don’t want it too perfect.
BEFORE AND AFTER: A Napoleon III tub chair is given a new lease on life in bold Binary embroidery by Porter Teleo for Schumacher.
Do you have particular periods you’re usually looking for?
We hunt with an open mind. The surprises are part of the fun! But my go-tos are chairs and settees from the Napoleon III period [mid- to late 19th century] in France. There’s a good amount out there and they’re extremely well made so they have held up really well. You’ll find them with unique tufting details, ebonized frames, and elegant proportions. They’re often smaller scale but that makes them perfect pull-up chairs. And my short friends love that their feet hit the floor when they sit in them!
Italian lounge chairs from the 20th century are another favorite. They are super comfortable as a cocktail chair and have sexy silhouettes. Plus with tight seats and backs, they don’t use a ton of fabric. And we always buy brass Chiavari chairs whenever we find them in Italy and France because they are almost like sculpture in the right space. But the smooth and shiny finish calls for texture, so we often reupholster the seats in chic and tactile needlepoint or épinglé.
BEFORE AND AFTER: “We’re obsessed with David Kaihoi’s Loose Check fabric for Schumacher and look for an opportunity to use it whenever we can! It always looks good on an oval-back chair where you can run it straight on the back and the looser seat adds an element of surprise and delight.”
How do you choose new fabrics to pair with old furniture?
Just like rooms speak to you and tell you what they want to be, I think antique upholstered furniture hints at what it could be in its new life. Things to think about: What is the welt going to look like? Will a self-welt look good or does it need a contrasting trim or maybe nailheads? What about scale? Is there enough room to see the whole pattern or is the piece too small to carry it? For example, we love Miles Redd’s Peacock Chintz but it needed a big piece to be able to see the full repeat! The other big thing is tufting. Stripes can go funny if there’s a lot of tufting. Channel tufting can make part of a pattern disappear, so it can actually benefit from busier patterns.
BEFORE AND AFTER: “A Napoleon III slipper chair we found in France had a really unique channel tufting outline," says Kirk. "Rita Konig’s Terry paisley for Schumacher was perfect because we were able to use the border for the channel detail. It feels meant to be!”
How much can you expect to spend on reupholstery? Does the process usually end up being more expensive than buying new or can you get some good deals?
There are lots of variables when thinking about reupholstery costs but I’d estimate around $600 for a chair, depending on where you live and things like cushions and tufting. We have a workroom that does all of our upholstery and we source all our antiques ourselves in Europe, so by the time we get it here, repaired, and reupholstered, there’s a lot of value in the finished product. Doing every step of that yourself can really add up, to say nothing of the surprises you might find along the way—think mold, termites, hidden shipping costs!
The cost of completely rehabbing a piece of upholstery generally comes out pretty close to what you’d spend to buy a well-made new model, not a cheap reproduction. The quality, though, is unbeatable—these pieces are literally made to last centuries.
The Villeneuve flea market is full of hidden treasures, from furniture to tableware.
Joanna MaclennanWhat are some of your favorite flea markets to shop?
It’s still possible to have good luck in Paris, but we head to Provence to find most of our antique furniture—particularly upholstery. The professional markets in Avignon, Béziers, and Montpellier are unbeatable. The Parma Antiques Fair in Italy is also an overwhelmingly good resource. None of these are for the faint of heart or casual shopper—it can be cutthroat! I’m not much for sports, so flea markets are my cardio, where I really get into the competitive spirit. There is nothing more devastating than seeing something beautiful being loaded onto someone else’s truck.
