Sigla, JDM produce chairs for royal wedding coverage

Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, April 28, 2011

Sigla Furniture and JDM Furniture produced these two chairs, which will be featured on TLC’s Friday morning broadcast of the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

NEW YORK — Los Angeles area furniture manufacturers Sigla Furniture and JDM Furniture together have produced two occasional chairs that will be seen by millions of viewers watching the most talked about wedding in years.

The chairs were ordered by Blue Flame Events of Norwalk, Conn., for the TLC network, which is hosting a live royal wedding viewing party in Times Square on Friday. The chairs will be featured on TLC's broadcast coverage of events surrounding the wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton.

JDM executive Tom Juhasz said he received the order for the chairs about two weeks ago. Juhasz, whose company has known and done business with Sigla Furniture over the past 20 years, contacted Sigla President Ben Bakian for help. Bakian's Los Angeles factory immediately began work to produce and finish the chair frames.

"It's exciting. It's not every day that we get to do things like this," Juhasz said.

Bakian's factory completed the frames around April 21 and Juhasz' factory upholstered them over the weekend with COM fabric printed by Ferrari Color in Salt Lake City. JDM completed and shipped the chairs to Times Square early Monday morning.

The chair frames have a Louis XV-inspired design and are made with beech solids in a silver finish, Bakian said. He normally would import this style frame from Italy, but was low on inventory and decided to simply produce it in the factory, which has been producing chair frames for about 28 years in the U.S.

The fabrics have an image of the royal crown and with the words "William & Kate" printed on the chair back and the words Royal Wedding and the TLC logo on the seat.

Each chair would have a suggested retail of about $1,000, Bakian said.