From Java, by Way of Oakland: Rattan Chairs from Wend Studio

Oakland, California, designers Michelle Plante and Genevieve Bandrowski launched their furniture line, Wend, after designing a chair for a French hotel for a project. The duo—who had been collaborating as an interior designer and a stylist, respectively—began researching materials to produce the chair and settled on rattan, which they loved for its flexibility and low eco-impact. “It’s been a process of love, sweat, and tears ever since,” says Bandrowski.

“We aim to offer a line of home furnishings that have the highest level of social and environmental commitment available, without sacrificing aesthetics,” they say.

They source their rattan from Indonesian rain forests, and from there it’s sent to Java to be woven by hand. In Java, they say, sometimes “entire villages are devoted to working with rattan,” a centuries-old Indonesian tradition the designers are enthusiastic to support. Today they design Wend chairs in collaboration, drawing on furniture designs from the sixties and seventies to “marry this traditional Indonesian craft with a distinctly California aesthetic.” The result is a four-piece collection—three chairs and one settee, available in select California stores and online.

Photography courtesy of Wend Studio.

Each Wend chair takes several days to make and is shaped and tied by hand in a fair-trade environment. Made in small batches, no two are exactly alike.

The rattan for Wend’s chairs is grown in Indonesian Borneo and on the island of Sulawesi, while each chair itself is made in Java.

Wend says that supporting the rattan industry helps to preserve Indonesian rain forests. Because the plant must climb rain forest trees in order to grow, local communities have an economic incentive to keep the rain forests intact. Rattan is also sustainable because it regrows quickly after harvest, from the same plant.

For the designers, part of the appeal of rattan is its its relatively low environmental impact: “Much of what people are currently producing in Indonesia requires cutting down rain forests and destroying the ecosystem,” says Plante. “Giving communities an alternative source of income that relies on the survival of forests, coupled with a craft that is a part of Indonesia’s traditional culture, made rattan a dream material.”

Wend chairs are carried at select shops across the US and in Denmark. For more, visit a list of Stockists.

Wend donates 10 percent of all proceeds to organizations that support positive global change. This year’s recipient is the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project, which works to protect the rain forest home of the world’s largest orangutan population.

For more of the material across our sites, see:

• Ikea 2017: Stylish Rattan by a Superstar Dutch Designer
• 10 Easy Pieces: Airy Woven Pendant Lights
• Trend Alert: Rattan Furniture Made Modern (Plus 15 to Buy)