I have a picture in my mind. A picture about having breakfast outdoors when weather permits. There’d be eggs, bacon, tropical fruits, a pot of tea and, of course, newspapers! A large balcony, terrace or lawn is just the kind of venue I have in mind, and so all that’s needed is some furniture. I wanted low-maintenance outdoor chairs that I could actually leave outside, rain or shine. Ordinary plastic chairs disgust me, and plain wrought-iron ones look, well, just rotten. My latest discovery is the Acapulco chair that’s named after a famous beach town in Mexico, where I believe these chairs first rose to fame. These chairs have a metal skeleton while the weave is PVC. Although I haven’t ruled out other outdoor seating options as yet, today is dedicated to Acapulco chairs!
The original Acapulco chairs aren’t of the shape that you see below, but let’s start with these. Designs often take inspirations from nature, and I can’t help but wonder if these Acapulco chairs took theirs from a peacock spreading its feathers. I love yellow, but I have never really experimented much with it. And these Acapulco chairs make me want to, right away!
Yellow was really nice. But I’ve confessed before that I have a weakness for blues and aquamarines. So here’s a possible middle path!
Bright colors don’t always match with existing themes and decor. But thankfully, the beauty of Acapulco chairs lies deep within its intricate design. Furniture that’s so beautiful by design doesn’t really need much color to make it look good. If you take a closer look at the previous photograph, you’d notice how beautiful the mere shadow on the floor is. Also when you see the photographs below, you’ll probably see my point about the design being supreme.
Here’s another great example of neutral-colored Acapulco chairs. You might also notice how the shape of the chairs below is a tad different from the earlier ones. Acapulco chairs, I read, were originally pair-shaped like these, but the round ones seem to be more popular now.
Considering how long Acapulco chairs have been around, it should come as no surprise that it’s inspired designers to give the original a twist. This one’s my favorite “re-invention” of the Acapulco chair, as it’s a drastic deviation in design, but still manages to capture the essence of the original chair. I like how the blue weave was intentionally placed away from the center to make the design vertically asymmetrical.
Here’s an Acapulco chair with the original shape, but combines three different weave colors. I’ve never been to Mexico, but I can bet you’ll find shops there that will custom-make chairs to suit your color preferences!
It’s not just the colors and the skeletal shape that can be changed, but also the weave. The source of inspiration here is clearly a spider web.
And these are my favorite at the moment because they just seem to fit perfectly into that picture in my head!
I know of the impact that movies have on people’s travel and tourism choices. The Da Vinci Code, The Life of Pi and Eat, Pray, Love saw a sudden surge of tourists in the places where these movies were shot. I know of photographs in the National Geographic that have inspired people to travel half way across the world. And now I’m beginning to believe that a blog on beautiful things could have the same impact. Well, at least on me, it has! I often look up the country of origin of my personal favorites from the posts that I put up. And when I’m desperate, I even check if they have international shipping options – that’s invariably disappointing because shipping usually costs more than the product! So now I’ve developed this habit of making a mental note of the things I should pick up if I ever visit certain countries. And sometimes I even think of going on a holiday to those places with the ulterior, secret agenda of buying the things I’ve longed for!