CELEBRATE ENDLESS SUMMER WITH A TIMELESS CLASSIC: BROWN JORDAN

At SOCO, you’ll discover Brown Jordan, the world’s finest maker of innovative, meticulously designed and exceptionally crafted outdoor furniture and accessories.

Founded in 1945 in Pasadena - and with its only retail store at SOCO in Costa Mesa - Brown

Jordan has the outdoor furnishings you need to celebrate an endless summer in iconic style. Recently, we sat down with Brown Jordan’s Chief Brand Curator (and HGTV star) Steve Elton, for a timeless conversation about the company’s most classic collections. Q: Tell us a bit about what makes the Tamiami collection so iconic.

Steve Elton: This collection goes back to the late 1950s. We were looking for a lightweight chair that didn’t need a lot of maintenance. One of our founders had seen a chair made of wood and leather inside an American Indian exhibit at a museum in Pasadena. He was so inspired that he decided to create Tamiami, one of the first tubular collections in our industry built with vinyl straps.

Q: How did the Kantan design evolve?

Steve Elton: Kantan was introduced in 1958 and it’s a slightly different version of Tamiami. We partnered with Japanese designer Tadao Inouye in Chicago to collaborate with us on this Mid-century design. There are photos of the Kennedys using our Kantan chairs in their homes. During the 2012 Casual Furniture Show in Chicago, we re-introduced the Kantan collection using brass (rather than aluminum) and an innovative Sunbrella strap that we developed. It won the best design award! This is a perfect example of why our designs are truly timeless.

Q: Building on the success of the Kantan, you developed the Flex chair. Tell us about that process.

Steve Elton: We were so successful with the new stretchable strap on the Kantan that we wanted to utilize it within another design. When you look at Kantan and Tamiami, they’re visually similar but it’s all about the details. Flex is a larger scale chair combining cast and extruded aluminum with a 2-inch strap instead of a 1-inch lace. It gives you a whole new look and feel. We wanted to create a more linear design to get more use out of the suncloth strap and lace so this collection was developed in 2013.

Visit Brown Jordan today to view the Tamiami, Kantan and Flex designs and their extensive collections of stylish and timeless outdoor furnishings and accessories.