FabrikantSwiss
De Sede
8 actieve items
Everything that became De Sede began in a saddle shop. In 1962, master saddler Ernst Lüthy established a small workshop in Klingnau, a town in the Swiss canton of Aargau, under the name Stern Polster Klingnau. The workshop's core skill was hand-processing tanned bull hides, and the precision that saddlery demands, exact cutting, tight stitching, surfaces that had to perform under physical stress, transferred directly into furniture. By 1965 the business had incorporated as a public limited company under the name De Sede, from the Latin meaning roughly 'from the seat.'
The 1970s transformed De Sede from a well-regarded Swiss workshop into an internationally recognized design house. The DS-600, introduced in 1972 and designed by Ueli Berger, Eleonore Peduzzi Riva, Heinz Ulrich, and Klaus Vogt, was the decisive object. Nicknamed the 'Non-Stop' sofa for its modular structure of individual armchair elements joined by leather-and-zipper hinges, it could be extended indefinitely, curving and snaking across a floor in configurations determined entirely by the owner. The form was inspired by the Tatzelwurm, a mythical serpentine creature from Alpine folklore. An assembly of DS-600 units eventually entered the Guinness Book of Records as the world's longest sofa configuration. The piece remains in production today.
The DS-80 daybed, launched in 1969 and introducing De Sede's patchwork leather technique, and the DS-76 of 1972, a sofa bed convertible without mechanical aids in a few steps, established a pattern of functional problem-solving that ran alongside the sculptural ambitions of the DS-600. Each model demonstrated that the company's saddle-trade origins were not decorative history but operative logic: the leather had to move with the body, hold its form, and age without failure.
Over the following decades De Sede extended its collaborator roster well beyond its founding designers. Architects and industrial designers including Santiago Calatrava, Gordon Guillaumier, and Philippe Malouin have each contributed pieces to the collection. The company currently produces more than 11,000 furniture pieces annually, exporting roughly 70 percent of its output to over 40 countries, with particular market concentration in German-speaking Europe, reflected in the auction geography of De Sede pieces appearing at German and Austrian houses.
At auction, the DS-600 consistently commands the highest prices in the De Sede secondary market. Examples in original leather, particularly in oxblood, cognac, and natural tan hides, attract serious collector interest. The DS-80 daybed and DS-76 sofa bed follow closely, appreciated both for their leather quality and for the functional clarity that has kept them relevant across five decades. De Sede's presence in Nordic and European auction rooms reflects a sustained appetite for Swiss mid-century leather furniture that shows no sign of cooling.