Avant Gallery to Launch Reimagined Walt Disney Signature Airline_009 Chair by Cory Grosser

Disney Consumer Products and Avant Gallery are pleased to announce the launch of the Walt Disney Signature Airline_009 Chair in collaboration with Cory Grosser as they recreate a classic Disney inspiration. The launch event of the exhibit will take place December 2, 2010 during Art Basel/Design Miami fairs.

Los Angeles based designer Cory Grosser and Walt Disney Signature, Disney’s adult lifestyle brand, have imagined a new armchair and ottoman inspired by the original Airline Chair from 1934, which Walt Disney selected when he built his original animation studio in Burbank, California.

In 1938, with the success of, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Walt Disney began to plan the construction of the ultimate animation studio in Burbank, California. Walt wanted his studio designed to facilitate optimum production, which is why he commissioned the design of the Airline Chair (1934). The chair was manufactured for a limited time and ultimately, the only chairs produced were the 300 or so which Walt Disney purchased for his new studio.

Visually beautiful and exceptionally comfortable, the Airline Chair was used widely throughout the studio by Walt Disney animators. To this day, the Airline Chair is a physical connection to the story of Disney.

“Like Walt Disney’s animators, our Walt Disney Signature team were moved by the Airline Chair design and its heritage and sought to recreate the spirit of the original in a re-imagined more streamlined form,” said Pam Lifford, executive vice president, global fashion and home, Disney Consumer Products. “Inspired by lightness and flight, realized with cutting-edge technology and advanced joinery techniques, the Airline_009 chair stretches the boundaries of possibility and the power of imagination. We believe this chair is a new tool for imagination and creativity and we hope it inspires its owners as the original did.”

The Airline_009 chair combines both the classic design of the past chair, but with modern touches of today. It celebrates advances in furniture construction with a sculpted walnut frame and fine leather upholstery. Through careful design choices, the chair references the past but appears both light and unmistakably modern. It reclines with a concealed hinge hidden between the seat and back.

Cory Grosser is a multi-disciplinary designer based in Los Angeles and an instructor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif. Surface Magazine named him one of the Top Avante Garde Designers in America and The Wall Street Journal proclaimed him “one of the designers most likely to become a household name.” Grosser’s work has appeared on tv and movies in America and abroad.

“This is the first time in my career that I have re-imagined an existing product. My goal was to create a new, modern chair that celebrates the original, but is updated to today’s way of living through improved aesthetics, manufacturing, comfort and quality of the materials for a lighter and elegant look,” said designer Cory Grosser. “I was most inspired by the story and the notion that Walt was willing to embrace a design that was so advanced for its time and it was exciting to have full access to the Disney archives and to learn how the chair was used in the original studio.”

The Airline_009 chair from Walt Disney Signature will be available exclusively at Avant Gallery for six months starting February 15, 2011 and will retail for approximately $3,900 and $1,400 for the accompanying ottoman. The chair will be available in black, brown, ivory, tan, red, orange, yellow, and green leather upholstery.