When the Womb chair, with its accompanying ottoman, was released, a bright red wool-covered chair was photographed with a chimney sweep taking a break. His lean silhouette, dressed in top-to-toe black and covered in soot, included a top hat and a black feather duster. This image remained on the pages of the New Yorker magazine for the next 15 years. While the chimney sweep created a rakish outline, the soft undulating form of the chair suggests more of a reclining mother, with arms spread out while feeding her newborn baby. Saarinen is quoted as saying the design represented “an attempt to achieve psychological comfort by providing a great big cup-like shell into which you can curl up”. Florence Knoll, who provided the brief for the design of the Womb chair, requested “a chair that was like sitting in a basket full of pillows – something I could really curl up in”.

While one can easily imagine mothers feeding their babies on the moulded fibreglass seat covered with sumptuous wool or leather, the chair lends itself more to reading in a living area or even a bedroom. “The chair’s wide armrests certainly suggest mothers resting their arms against their baby’s head, but it does speak of being cocooned,” Studio Doherty director and interior designer Mardi Doherty says. “But it’s also the type of cocooning that doesn’t make you feel trapped, given the chair’s scale and generosity of the armrests,” Mardi says.

Although Florence Knoll may have suggested filling the chair with cushions, Saarinen was thoughtful enough to create a built-in cushion at the base of the seat’s backrest to eliminate superfluous cushions that would likely end up on the floor. Dedece Melbourne showroom manager Roger Ludowyke sees one of the chair’s point-of-difference as being “one of the first chairs from that period that’s curved rather than square in form. It was also the first chair to use Saarinen’s novel boucle fabric.” Today, the mohair velvet or ‘Cato’, a woollen tweed fabric, are two of the most popular choices.