When guests enter Becky Hearn’s office in Los Angeles, they’re greeted by a smoky set of vintage Plia chairs and a Plana folding table. The photographer, director, creative producer, and florist has spent the past three years “slowly building my empire of furniture,” which mostly consists of Italian designers that are household names like Gae Aulenti, Mario Bellini, and Massimo Vignelli. She considers the moment when you reach a certain age and can afford to start collecting investment pieces a major milestone.
Becky’s initial exposure to the Plia was through the pages of a vintage design book from her personal library; she would eventually acquire a vintage red Plia chair from an auction and the rest is history. (Though her whole Piretti collection is worth around $5,400, Becky sourced the items for significantly less.) “I like the simplicity of [the Plia chair] and how elegant it looks, but also very constructive,” she says. “I would never get bored or tired of looking at them.
During his 12 years at Anonima Castelli, Piretti was the head designer and head of development. In 1971, the Plia earned him a SMAU award and Bio 5 Distinction at the Ljubliana, Slovenia, biennale. Not long after, Piretti received the Gute Form prize of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1973. From there, he established his own design company and developed new products for various clients (including Castelli) across North America, Asia, and Europe. Enrico and Edoardo estimate that Castelli has sold around six million Plia chairs from 1969 to 2022. (Its most popular period was the ’80s.)
“Personally, I see a perfect example of industrial design and probably one of the best,” Enrico explains. “We are not talking about beauty and aesthetics, but answers to different questions raised by the designer himself: How can I do something transparent? Is it possible to make it foldable? How can I make it as thin as possible? Plia was the result of three years of non-stop 24/7 work, an incredible effort made by Giancarlo Piretti. The beauty of Plia was not the final purpose, but a consequence of the in-depth development of a great product which always leads to the beauty of that product.”
When Jenna Fletcher launched Oswalde on Instagram during lockdown in 2020, there was no doubt in the curator’s mind that the Plia had to be in the store’s rotation of furniture pieces. “I knew everyone in London was super thirsty for them,” she writes in an email. “They feel quite porno—don’t ask why.” It’s not just the simplicity of the design that makes the chair so sexy, but also the precision of mechanics that are undeniably clever and sleek. Beyond the Plia, Jenna is a huge fan of this particular family of furniture. “I hoard Platone desks, Plano tables, and Plona chairs,” she says. “I wanna fold my entire life away.”