Thai Designer Nuttapong's Seat Belt Chairs featured in Movie

Green Seat Belt Chairs seen in The Hunger Games

The Phillips Collection and Thai Designer Nuttapong have been featured in the new Movie, The Hunger Game.  Nuttapong's Green Seat Belt chairs have been a hit with The Phillips Collection for quite a few years and are now being seen on the Big Screen.

Nuttapong Charoenkitivarakorn, designed the Seatbelt Chair as a part of a larger collection of work, entitled, "The Sculpture." The work was designed in 2005 and is hand-made in Thailand.

 Nuttapong works with influences important to modern Thai culture. In this instance, the Seatbelt Chair is made using scrap material from a local manufacturer by people in a local Thai village. By combining the two worlds of modern manufacturing and Thai craftsmanship Nuttapong references historical Thai culture while at the same time using material from a manufacturer integral to Thailand's modern economy.

 The inspiration for using cotton straps came about after Thai designer, Nuttapong Charaoenkitivarakorn, saw them used for seat belts and bag straps. He set out to create a functional piece that added an exotic and modern flair to a basic design. The steel and wood frame are then wrapped in the cotton “seat belt” in a criss-cross pattern- one Nuttapong found more fresh than the basic checkerboard design. Even the backside of the chair is worth noting. Braided all the way to the base, it gives the illusion on a fishtail. The straps have one color on either side of the fabric, which is responsible for the striking contrast of color as the material twists.

For nearly thirty years, Mark and Julie Phillips have displayed a striking skill for discovery, from one-of-a-kind treasures to new trends. Starting in Southeast Asia and continuing on to Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Pacific Rim, they’ve searched the world for exciting products for their design-oriented customers. Today, The Phillips Collection continues to define global style for the contemporary market. With the same spirit of innovation, they discover design and designers, and match them with an incredible range of production resources developed over decades of travel.

The Phillips Collection thrives on market-driven execution of innovative new concepts. With new categories and new materials, each market features products that can be found nowhere else. Taking ceramic vases into the realm of sculpture, creating striking combinations of unexpected materials, and bringing a designer’s eye to a museum collection, The Phillips Collection is the conduit for a wide range of fresh ideas filtered through a sense for the market and connection to the customer. As such, we are uniquely positioned to meet the needs and expectations of their design-oriented clients.

For more information on The Phillips Collection and Nuttapong please go to their website at:

http://www.phillipscollection.com