Over the years, we’ve come across chair frames and carcasses — the structure without soft back or seat in place — and wondered what we can do with them. Sometimes we find beautiful sculptural ones discarded on the street, sometimes new versions, like chair forms meant to be upholstered that we discovered here (see below), or Ikea finds WITHOUT the pillows.

Recently we came across a compelling idea for transforming chair frames developed by Italian designer Luca Martorano in collaboration with craftsman Georg Muehlmann. In their ‘Bretelle’ chair (Italian for suspenders), they wrapped the back and seat of the wooden frame with a layered, intersecting network of suspenders to form the pan and backrest. The elastic framework provides comfortable, lightweight seating.

It’s a simple formula: a chair frame + suspenders.

We found some unexpectedly beautiful furniture frames for sale, like this one meant to be upholstered, available here. Imagine it suspenderized.

A vin ordinaire tubular steel chair frame (a common street find) would benefit from suspenders…

…and if you should be so lucky as to find a frame as beautiful as this Rene Herbst one, well just imagine…(Herbst was the designer who pioneered chic bungee cord furniture)…

Suspenders are easy to find. We found this trove of neon colored suspenders at Amazon.

While we’re speaking of suspenders, these these vertical stripe khaki and grey suspenders are great to hold your pants up and go with just about everything.

via Design Boom; photos courtesy Outdoorz Gallery