This full suite SOLD for the full asking price- $2790 for BOTH swivel chairs and BOTH footstools. (April 2022). Follow us on Instagram – www.instagram.com/invisedge

This listing price is for ONE TESSA T1 Leather SWIVEL Chair. The matching footstool is an extra $245. We have TWO matching chairs and two footstools available. We would prefer to sell both chairs and both footstools as one lot but if someone requests one chair and one footstool and you also request one chair and one footstool, we’d go with these two sales if they were to come in first.

This suite is SOLD UNDER CONSIGNMENT by a regular iNVISeDGE seller in ADELAIDE, South Australia.

Background Info and Provenance

(Written in 2021)

Designed by Fred Lowen for Tessa, it was the T1 that shot Tessa Furniture to fame after becoming a winner of the Dunhill Design Award in 1970. Tessa quickly became an internationally desirable furniture manufacturer, in Australia and throughout Europe. This appeal continues today. The T1 design is virtually the same as the famed Tessa T21 swivel design. Tessa T21 chairs are some of the most asked-for chairs on the iNVISeDGE website. The reason for this is simple- they are one of the most COMFORTABLE chairs ever made- these are beautiful chairs to relax in. Each chair here also comes with a matching footstool which makes the comfort here even more sublime!

These stunning swivel chairs and footstools are FULL-GRAIN HIDE BOVINE vintage leather ie. the real deal. After the mid-1990s until they closed in 2019, Tessa often used the inferior TOP-GRAIN leather- Top-Grain leather is NOT TOP-GRADE leather- it’s the inferior THIN modern-day leather that deteriorates within about 10-20 years. FULL-GRAIN leather is the best leather you can get (and the only leather you truly want). The investment appeal of this suite is a NO-BRAINER. Tessa T21 chairs in FULL-GRAIN leather were selling new for about $4400 EACH before they closed.

You’ll sometimes see second-hand Tessa lounge suites where the leather has completely ripped at the seams or cracked all the way through within 20 years of use- this is always MODERN Top-Grain Leather. The leather on this suite is NOT that. This suite has various labels- FULL-GRAIN HIDE LEATHER labels on the underside of the footstools and LEATHER on the underside of the seat cushions. From these labels, and the fact they show ‘A Division of Rank Furniture’, these pieces were manufactured quite early on- most likely in the early 1970’s.

After a 50-year stint in the Australian Marketplace, making virtually ALL their furniture in AUSTRALIA, Tessa Furniture died in 2019. It’s a sorry state of affairs when an Australian business can no longer do what they do so well because of cheap imports destined to end up as landfill. And this is the very reason why Tessa eventually died. Their designs are so well-made that vintage second-hand Tessa pieces ended up becoming more sought-after than new Tessa Furniture. And who can blame people going straight to the second-hand market for designs such as this? The QUALITY of this design is so exceptional that second-hand ones (in quality upholstery / leather) often still look basically new after 20, 30, 40, even 50 years of use.

This pair of chairs and footstools are close to 50 years old and are just incredible! No guessing how durable these chairs are. After much of the world’s modern furniture ends up as landfill, these chairs will be passed onto another user and eventually a new generation.