Description
SOLD for significantly MORE than our OFFERS OVER price! SOLD!
NOTE- our listing price is OFFERS OVER $2290 for the sofa only. We have a matching pair of Zoureff / New-Style Upholstery swivel chairs priced SEPARATELY! This suite is being sold from my client’s home in HELENSBURGH, Sydney but can be transported Australia-wide for a reasonable fee. WE ARE OPERATING AS THE SELLER’S AGENT AND WILL ORGANISE THE FULL SALE ON OUR SELLER’S BEHALF. Listed prices always INCLUDE our commission fee (which is usually around 22.5% for a listing like this when I have travelled to personally work with the seller’s item).
I travelled to SYDNEY to specifically to work with several consignment items. This is a vintage COLLECTORS suite (c. late-1950’s). It’s durable, sooo very COMFORTABLE (much more comfortable than it looks), SOLID as a rock, the upholstery is ORIGINAL and in BRILLIANT condition (and this fabric is also as tough as nails too)! I personally photographed this suite so have inspected and experienced it in the flesh.
Background Info and Provenance
A stunning late-1950’s designer couch in the classic retro, designer, space-age shape made by either Dario Zoureff of Melbourne or New Style Upholstery of Sydney. These vintage lounge suites are really hard to get and will add a designer touch to your space, giving it character and personality- in an architectural “retro” house it’d be AMAZING! This suite retains the original TOUGH-AS-NAILS fabric upholstery that’s about 60 – 70 years old and in incredible condition too! ALL three pieces are AUTHENTIC late-1950’s pieces- the construction is meticulous and honest. They’re trying to make similar items these days but the construction is nearly always far from honest- under the upholstery is chipboard and cheap foam-cushioning that degrades, flattens and loses its shape in a matter of years. Look at this suite after about 65 years of use- just incredible! They just don’t make them like this anymore- these pieces were built to last back then. Here’s proof in the pudding! Marvel at the workmanship here. Rest assured, ALL 3 pieces are still solid as a rock after 65 -odd years of use. So many hours were put into building this designer couch properly- the inner-spring system- made COMPLETELY by hand, is absolutely meticulous. The work was put into it to ensure it’d last for future generations and the comfort would be same over the years regardless of how much it was used. The seat always springs straight back into shape. Which brings me to the most important point here … COMFORT!
I personally love the comfort of this one- many young ones these days want “sloth-all-over” comfort but you can still do that with this piece … easily. Put the cushions you want behind your back (feather-down perhaps?) and you’ve got sloth-over comfort- there’s plenty of space to get the comfort you want. New sofas tend to have “sensational comfort”- it’s a sensation the second you sit down but there’s not the right support and over the years it becomes obvious the comfort isn’t “real”. (The piece has been designed to win you over in the 5 minutes you sit on it in a furniture store (at home it quickly becomes apparent that NO support = NO comfort!) This suite on the other hand has brilliant support- complete relaxation when you’re sitting in it- the angles of this suite (especially around the middle section in the back are perfect. The couch in this middle area holds you in perfect sitting position.) But make no mistake here- the right amount of springiness is also there via an incredible spring-system- not soft foam that has no support. Foam couches these days are made that way for a reason … because it’s cheap. They don’t make them like this anymore because most people don’t investigate what they’re really buying and don’t really care either. After 10 years if it’s uncomfortable as hell we’ll just chuck it into landfill- she’ll be right mate… go out and buy another $2000 piece of cheap crap.
This RARE vintage suite by Dario Zoureff of Melbourne or New Style Upholstery of Sydney has evaded landfill for almost 70 years and there’s no reason why it won’t last another 70- but that’s a lie really. I see no reason why these Zoureff / New-Style Upholstery frames won’t last forever if used with any sense. I just LOVE this fabric choice too- it’s an “impossible-to-kill” AUTHENTIC VINTAGE fabric, the texture adds a subtle point of interest and the blue colour with deep-purply / blue coloured fleck is amazing (!) Neutral, but with that subtle retro-pop. The rich-undertones of this fabric are cool but not over the top- you could work this suite into any space from retro to a classic contemporary space.
Zoureff / New Style Upholstery furniture is honest furniture built around 65 years ago when manufacturers had your best interests in mind and not their own! This vintage lounge suite was built when items were made (and sold) down the road and if they sold you crap there would be recourse- you’d go back to them and complain. And they’d have to do something about it, otherwise you’d go off complaining about their business to the whole community- soon no-one in town would buy anything from people peddling crap and their business would die. Sadly, this is not how business is done in Australia anymore. (I just hope our politicians come to their senses sooner rather than later and start actively supporting Australian enterprise again in every way they possibly can.)
Dario Zoureff was born in Hungary and emigrated to Australia in 1939 bringing his furniture cabinetry skills with him. Zoureff fitted out hundreds of clients’ homes from the 1950’s through to 70’s, many of his clients themselves were Jewish immigrants. Zoureff custom-built designs and this lounge suite design (that I’ve seen around the traps a coupla times over the 21 years I’ve been in this business) is highly desirable among collectors of fine vintage furniture from the mid-century / post-war era. His work is arguably the most collectable out of any Melbourne-made furniture from the 1960’s and 70’s.
New Style upholstery was a Sydney-based company who closely followed what elite / boutique furniture designers of the time were creating (such as Dario Zoureff and Paul Kafka). They may have crafted similar items under their own brand OR simply did the upholstery for boutique pieces such as this sofa (that was designed by Dario Zoureff). New Style Upholsetry items were built with exemplary skill in a day when CRAFTSMANSHIP was what it was all about. New Style Upholstery items have been heralded by dealers in the know as being some of the best furniture pieces made in Sydney at the time. Their items were built to last- proof in the pudding is in items such as this that are all as solid as a rock after around 65 years of use!
We are uncertain of the maker of this exact suite. We know that the original owners who are now deceased were Latvian and emigrated to Melbourne in the late-1950’s. In the late-1960’s they moved up to Sydney. The current custodians lived next door to this (now) deceased couple. They became firm friends and shared hundreds of cups of tea and biccies on this exact lounge suite over decades. The lounge suite was left to their good friends in their Will. The man of the house was an engineer and when he moved to Sydney for better-paid work in the late-1960’s, it is believed that they could have bought their furniture with them- which was the done thing at the time.
When you INVEST in quality VINTAGE furniture such as this incredible Dario Zoureff / New Style Upholstery lounge sofa (with swivel chairs priced SEPARATELY), there’s no better way to financially invest in your home, the future of our environment and your local community- iNVISeDGE is a small Australian business employing locals for everything our business does from the helpers who clean our pieces up, the person who helps us make improvements to our website, all the way through to the person who delivers our items to us and out to our customers when they are sold to their new custodians.
2301 Dario Zoureff / New Style Upholstery
