Sabine Marcelis Stool

Dutch-Kiwi designer Sabine Marcelis’s work is at the forefront of contemporary material innovation in product and installation design. She works with glass manufacturers and more, forging partnerships across her industry to bring her ambitiously experimental projects to fruition.

Marcelis’s focus is on allowing happenstance sensory experiences to emerge by juxtaposing combinations of unlikely materials and colors. She was educated at the Design Academy Eindhoven and since founding her eponymous studio in 2011 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, she has built a remarkable roster of clients in fashion, architecture and art.

Marcelis has created signature pieces for the likes of Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm OMA, high-fashion labels Fendi and Isabel Marant and luxury beauty brand Aēsop. She has also exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in Milan and won Wallpaper* magazine’s Designer of the Year award for 2020.

Marcelis was invited to create a sculptural intervention for the interiors of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich’s iconic Barcelona Pavilion, which saw the debut of the pair’s timeless Barcelona chair in 1929. For her “No Fear of Glass” exhibition, the designer subverted the original request made to van der Rohe to “not use too much glass” by designing chaise longues, pillar lights and a fountain that feature glass as the main material. The rest of her work is informed by a similarly sophisticated playfulness, as evident in the charming forms she creates — she has designed doughnut-shaped rugs, the multifunctional resin Candy Cube side tables and colorful asymmetrical glass mirrors.

Marcelis has the rare ability to create dynamic and fluid experiences by pushing the limits of craftsmanship. While her enchanting seating, lighting and other furnishings may appear effortless due to their fluid and simple forms, they are the result of relentless attention to detail and venturesome experiments with materiality.

Shop a variety of Sabine Marcelis's designs on 1stDibs.

Stools are versatile and a necessary addition to any living room, kitchen area or elsewhere in your home. A sofa or reliable lounge chair might nab all the credit, comfort-wise, but don’t discount the roles that good antique, new and vintage stools can play.

“Stools are jewels and statements in a space, and they can also be investment pieces,” says New York City designer Amy Lau, who adds that these seats provide an excellent choice for setting an interior’s general tone. 

Stools, which are among the oldest forms of wooden furnishings, may also serve as decorative pieces, even if we’re talking about a stool that is far less sculptural than the gracefully curving molded plywood shells that make up Sōri Yanagi’s provocative Butterfly stool. 

Fawn Galli, a New York interior designer, uses her stools in the same way you would use a throw pillow. “I normally buy several styles and move them around the home where needed,” she says.

Stools are smaller pieces of seating as compared to armchairs or dining chairs and can add depth as well as functionality to a space that you’ve set aside for entertaining. For a splash of color, consider the Stool 60, a pioneering work of bentwood by Finnish architect and furniture maker Alvar Aalto. It’s manufactured by Artek and comes in a variety of colored seats and finishes.

Barstools that date back to the 1970s are now more ubiquitous in kitchens. Vintage barstools have seen renewed interest, be they a meld of chrome and leather or transparent plastic, such as the Lucite and stainless-steel counter stool variety from Indiana-born furniture designer Charles Hollis Jones, who is renowned for his acrylic works. A cluster of barstools — perhaps a set of four brushed-aluminum counter stools by Emeco or Tubby Tube stools by Faye Toogood — can encourage merriment in the kitchen. If you’ve got the room for family and friends to congregate and enjoy cocktails where the cooking is done, consider matching your stools with a tall table.

Whether you need counter stools, drafting stools or another kind, explore an extensive range of antique, new and vintage stools on 1stDibs.