kettal basket

a danish chair goes outside

The Ditzels drew the Basket chair in the 1950s, and the name describes it well: a woven body carried by a wooden frame. Kettal has not redrawn it. The company edits the chair, which means it makes the Ditzel design again, and it offers two versions of the same piece so that one silhouette can serve a living room and a garden.

The outdoor Basket armchair replaces hand-braided wicker with a synthetic fiber woven in the intrecciato manner, the Italian word for braided. The frame is hardwood. A synthetic weave handles rain and strong sun far better than natural wicker, and open weaving lets water drain instead of sitting in the seat. Hardwood left outside turns gray over time unless it is oiled, which suits the quiet look of the chair.

The original version keeps to the 1950s chair: oak, with wicker braided by hand. It belongs indoors, in a den or a sunroom that opens onto the garden. Having both makes the Kettal Basket chair useful in a house where the design should carry from the interior to the terrace, the same outline in two materials on either side of a glass door.

As a single piece, Basket works where one strong chair is needed rather than a full set: next to a fire pit, at the end of a dock, in the reading corner of a porch. It mixes easily with other Kettal patio furniture on the same porch, and a low side table is all it needs for a drink and a book. The indoor original can be ordered alongside it when the room behind the glass should match.

A 1950s Danish weave, remade to live outside.