Whilst searching for your favourite designer piece of furniture you will have noticed the huge price variation between suppliers. It may be tempting to pay in the region of £50 instead of £500 for a Bertoia chair, but you would almost certainly be buying an unauthorised copy. Does this matter? Well it depends on your point of view. If you want to enjoy its every detail and admire it every day you may well feel let down in buying a copy. And if you want to keep the chair in your family for many years and pass it on to future generations, a copy is unlikely to be for you. It's unlikely to last the distance! An authorised version is made by trained, dedicated craftsmen and will last a lifetime. A cheap copy is an unauthorised version, made with inferior materials and without the designer's permission. There is also an argument which says that companies who make copies and swamp the market drive designers out of business, so there will be fewer new design classics of the future. And the world will become a boring place. The rule is simple: if you want a design classic, buy authentic and you won't be disappointed.

How to spot a real Bertoia chair
There is a Knoll stamp on the back of the frame and Knoll is printed on the fabric under the seat pad, which is visible by looking under the chair. Another key point when comparing the real thing vs a copy is that each individual vertical wire strut sits on top of the wire frame, not the other way round.

To view the Bertoia Chair range please go to our Bertoia section.

Find Me the Original. For more information on how to spot a copy, with detailed video footage of how an Authorised Original should look, take a look at our sister company: http://www.findmetheoriginal.com