wicker patio furniture

outdoor wicker furniture left out in the rain

Traditional wicker is a technique, not a material: willow, cane or rattan woven over a frame. It does not like rain. Most outdoor wicker furniture today uses a synthetic fiber instead, and US catalogs sell it as resin wicker patio furniture or all weather wicker patio furniture. Kettal lists its fiber as anti-UV synthetic fiber and weaves it over aluminum.

Patricia Urquiola's Maia is the best known example: a braided shell on an aluminum frame, as an armchair, a chair with armrests, a stool and a hanging swing seat. Vimini, also hers, from 2018, turns the weave into sofas and coffee tables, including a triangular one.

rattan patio furniture and woven rope

For natural rattan, look at Antonio Citterio's Eolias group: the Salina chair, armchair and easy chair combine rattan with aluminum. Tilos, also by Citterio and extended in 2026, reads the bamboo and rattan seating of the 1950s and 1960s through a metal shell woven with acrylic rope.

Basket goes further back. Nanna and Jorgen Ditzel drew it in the 1950s in hand-braided wicker; the Kettal outdoor version is synthetic fiber over a wood frame.

a wicker patio furniture set

A full wicker patio furniture set is easiest from Vimini, which has sofas and tables, or from Maia combined with a table from another family. Doshi Levien's Bela lantern, in synthetic fiber, lights the set once the sun goes down.

Woven by hand, then left out in the rain.