The Cabourn Collection

Named for the British designer whose archives lean on expedition wear — polar parkas, climbing breeches, the ingenious kit men once wore up mountains. The affinity is direct enough. These are chairs made in much the same spirit: quietly useful, beautifully built, and prepared, when the room needs to be something else, to fold themselves out of the way.

Folding chairs turn up elsewhere in the collection; the Moss and the Officer's Field Chairs both fold, and fold well. What distinguishes the Cabourn is that folding is the whole of its argument. Two English bridle leather belts hold each chair open. Loosen them and it folds; the same two belts then cinch it shut for the closet, the back of the car, or the hut at the foot of whatever mountain you happen not to be climbing. The engineering is honest — the belts that do the work are also the latch.

Four of them. The dining chair, and its armless Type 02 for the sides of a long run. The Sail Chair, pulled wider, its back a single span of canvas or leather. And the folding counter and bar chair, which is the harder trick — a folding frame that has to hold a sitter three feet in the air and not think about it.

They are the chairs one buys for a house that entertains more often than it has seating for.