IT'S ALL SO… PREMIOCRE

A guide to the new age of Potemkin luxury

- AMANDA MULL

Two years ago, while trying to rent and furnish a new apartment, I was defeated repeatedly by the answer to the question How much could it possibly cost? Getting a key cost $3,200 when it required paying a broker fee to some guy named Steve. Four planks of wood and some metal piping cost $1,499 when they were a West Elm bookcase. I had moved and bought furniture before, of course, but the financial horror is fresh every time. This go-round, the kitchen chairs were what broke me.

Like a lot of young people aspiring to move upward, I was in the market for some furniture crafted by Charles and Ray Eames, the midcentury designers who helped introduce modernism to the United States. The couple’s work has been central to the furniture style’s American revival in the past 20 years, but if you encounter highend interior design mostly on Instagram and Pinterest, you probably know the Eameses by their chairs. The most famous pieces include a leather lounger-and-ottoman set with a curved wooden base that’s particularly beloved by men who work at start-ups, as well as a series of dining chairs with colorful molded-plastic bucket seats. Arguably the most recognizable of the latter is nicknamed the “Eiffel” for its trussed-metal leg structure; one of the most popular reproductions costs $595 from Herman Miller, the design’s original manufacturer. I needed at least four.