Walk into any design magazine spread or upscale living room today and you are likely to spot one: a low-slung, sling-style seat that looks almost too sculptural to sit in. The butterfly chair — known in Argentina as the BKF chair, and sometimes called the sling chair — is one of the most recognisable furniture silhouettes of the twentieth century. It disappeared for decades. Now it is everywhere again, and this time in full-grain leather rather than canvas. Here is everything you need to know about where it came from, how it is made, and why it earns a place in a modern living room.
Where the Butterfly Chair Came From
The butterfly chair was designed in 1938 by three Argentine architects: Antonio Bonet, Juan Kurchan, and Jorge Ferrari-Hardoy. All three were working in the Buenos Aires studio of Le Corbusier at the time and were deeply influenced by the modernist idea that furniture should be as light and functional as possible. The result was a chair that used a single continuous piece of leather or canvas suspended from a folded iron rod frame — no padding, no mechanism, no unnecessary material.
The design was licensed in the United States by Knoll from 1947 onward and sold widely through the 1950s and 1960s before becoming so heavily copied that the courts eventually ruled the design could not be protected. Production moved to cheap canvas versions, quality collapsed, and the chair fell out of fashion by the 1980s.
How It Is Made
A proper butterfly chair has two components: the frame and the cover.
The frame is a single piece of iron rod bent into a continuous X shape with four legs. A well-made frame is powder-coated for rust resistance and fitted with a brushed brass or chrome finish on the feet. The frame folds flat for storage — one of the original designers' stated goals was a chair that could be moved easily and stored without taking up space.
The cover clips onto the frame without bolts or stitching — four corners, four loops, and the leather itself holds the seat shape under your weight. On low-cost versions the cover is canvas or polyester. On a proper chair it is full-grain leather, which means the outermost layer of the hide is kept intact. Full-grain leather develops a patina over years of use rather than peeling or cracking the way bonded or split leather does.
At Parrys Leather World, the covers are cut from full-grain goat leather. The iron frame is powder-coated and finished with a brushed brass detail. Assembled dimensions are 38 inches (96.5 cm) tall, 25 inches (63.5 cm) wide at the top, and 13 inches (33 cm) seat height. Weight capacity is 150 lbs (68 kg).
Why It Is Back
Three things are driving the butterfly chair revival.
Smaller living spaces. Urban apartments in the 2020s are smaller than at any point in the post-war period. The butterfly chair, which folds flat and stores behind a sofa, solves the guest seating problem without buying a second sofa.
The slow-design movement. Consumers who grew up watching fast furniture fall apart are now willing to pay more for something made properly. A full-grain leather butterfly chair bought today should last twenty years. A canvas one from a mass-market retailer will sag and fade within two.
Visual weight. Modern interiors trend toward fewer, bolder pieces rather than rooms stuffed with furniture. The butterfly chair has enormous visual presence for its footprint — it reads as art even when nobody is sitting in it.
How to Use It
The butterfly chair works as a reading seat, a guest chair in a bedroom, or as a pair flanking a coffee table. It is low — the seat sits 13 inches from the floor — so it is most comfortable for people who do not find low seating difficult. Pair it with a matching leather footstool to bring the effective seat height up and add lumbar support.
Leather versions look best in rooms with natural materials: timber floors, rattan, linen, and stone. They also work as a contrast piece in a more minimal, concrete-and-steel space where the warm leather provides the only soft texture in the room.
What to Look For When Buying
The three quality markers that separate a chair worth buying from one that will disappoint are the frame material, the leather grade, and the hardware finish.
The frame should be iron or steel — not aluminium, which flexes under load. Powder-coating protects against rust; bare metal frames corrode if left in humid conditions. The leather should be full-grain, not top-grain or bonded. Full-grain means the surface has not been sanded or corrected; it shows the natural grain of the hide and will improve with age rather than degrade. Hardware — the feet and frame joints — should be powder-coated or brass-finished rather than bare metal or painted plastic.
If you are buying online, ask the seller to confirm the frame material and leather grade in writing before ordering. A seller who uses vague language like "genuine leather" without specifying the grade is almost always selling a lower-quality product.
The butterfly chair survived eighty years because the design is genuinely good. A well-made version in full-grain leather is one of the few pieces of furniture you can buy today that will still be in use when your children inherit it.
