Marfa Stance Moves Into Furniture With Gee's Bend Quilt Chairs

Seven years after its founding, British outerwear brand Marfa Stance has released its first furniture collection: three steel-frame chairs and a bench upholstered in quilts made by the quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama.

Los Angeles furniture designer Stephen Kenn designed the pieces. His studio had already supplied the furniture for Marfa Stance's first New York flagship, so the collaboration grew out of an existing relationship.

'We've never believed design should live within one category,' says Marfa Stance founder Georgia Dant, who calls the move into furniture the 'logical next step'. Dant founded the brand in 2019 after leading men's and women's design teams at Burberry and Rag & Bone.

Why Gee's Bend quilts?

Gee's Bend is a community of African American women based in a bend of the Alabama River in Wilcox County who have been making quilts for generations. Marfa Stance has worked with the community since 2022, turning deadstock fabric sourced from Italy into quilted jackets and blankets.

The brand's whole identity rests on surplus materials. Its modular, fully reversible outerwear is made in Italy by female-led factories using surplus Japanese and Italian nylon, wool and cashmere deadstock. The approach draws on artist Donald Judd's functional design philosophy — Judd lived and worked in Marfa, Texas, the town that gave the brand its name.

'The way we think about a piece of outerwear, how it's made, what happens to the materials, how long it can live, how it can change with its owner, is actually very close to how Stephen approaches furniture,' says Dant. 'We share a belief in utility, longevity, and making something beautiful from what's already around us. This collaboration lets us take that philosophy somewhere completely new.'

What do the chairs look like?

The seats adapt two of Kenn's existing lines:

• The Inheritance Collection: a blackened steel frame with cotton webbing and leather belts holding loose, chunky cushions.
• The Ease Collection: a curved upholstered form built from different foam densities, providing both structure and softness.

Each chair is upholstered in a single Gee's Bend quilt, which makes every piece one of a kind.

'When I first saw a Marfa Stance jacket I was transported back to some of my earliest days studying vintage military clothing,' says Kenn. 'The careful consideration and thoughtful details evoked an admiration and immediate kinship. I couldn't help but wonder, if this jacket were a reversible slip cover, what would it look like?'

The chairs are his answer.

Where can you see and buy them?

For now, each chair sits in a different Marfa Stance store: Montecito, Chicago, Madison Avenue in New York, and Chelsea in London. After the in-store debut, the pieces will be available to buy online, with prices on enquiry.

Kenn's small team makes each chair to order in Los Angeles, working with local vendors, many of them family-run businesses in East and South LA. The furniture is designed to be repaired and adapted, gaining character through use rather than wearing out of relevance.

Marfa Stance hints that more home pieces could follow, which would extend its emphasis on adaptability, craftsmanship and longevity from the wardrobe into the home.