Meanwhile, crossing that bridge from Malmo to Denmark...
Way back in the day, when you couldn't find Nanna Ditzel's classic Trissen toadstool tables and chairs in America with a truffle-hunting pig, I heard rumors some amazing store in the Village had just opened and might carry them. Sure enough, on my first pilgrimage to kid-o, they had a display model right in front.
Surprised as I was, I guess, at meeting someone who knew Ditzel's children's furniture, Lisa Mahar ushered me into the back, and opened a box that had just arrived: she drew a pristine oak Nanna Ditzel high chair out of the packing peanuts, and it was good.
Haven't seen one since or heard a peep about it anywhere, until I just spotted a pair of them for sale at Baxter & Liebchen, aka Brooklyn's Danish Furniture Warehouse. They date from 1955, and there's one with a vinyl seat cushion and leather leg strap, and one like Lisa's, with just a wooden crossbar. Pricing is somewhere between the Stokke Kinderzeat [$199] and the Jean Prouve wall unit I should've bought back in the dotcom days [now $100 million].
Above, B&L's posterchild demonstrates the Ditzel Dismount, a tricky move that the CPSC banned from all Kidalympics competition in 1973.
1955 Nanna Ditzel High Chair [baxterliebchen.com, under 'other', via interiordesign.net]
