Accent Chairs — The Underrated Hero of Interior Design

While sofas get most of the attention in living room design, it's often the accent chair that elevates a space from well-furnished to truly designed. A thoughtfully chosen accent chair adds personality, creates visual interest, and provides that essential layer of sophistication that makes a room feel complete.

Why Every Room Needs an Accent Chair

An accent chair serves multiple purposes beyond additional seating:

Visual anchor: In an open-plan space, an accent chair helps define zones and create intimate conversation areas.

Design contrast: Pairing a sculptural chair with a clean-lined sofa creates the tension and balance that makes interiors feel curated rather than catalogue-ordered.

Personal expression: While sofas tend to be practical choices, accent chairs are where you can take design risks — a bold colour, an unusual silhouette, a statement fabric.

Flexibility: Unlike a sofa, an accent chair can be moved between rooms as your needs change. Today's living room reading chair becomes tomorrow's bedroom corner piece.

Choosing the Right Style

Sculptural Chairs

Chairs with distinctive silhouettes — curved backs, unusual proportions, architectural lines — work as functional art pieces. They're ideal for rooms that need a focal point beyond the sofa. Our Meridian and Orbis chairs exemplify this approach.

Lounge Chairs

Lower, deeper, and designed for extended relaxation. These work beautifully paired with an ottoman or positioned near a window for a dedicated reading spot. The Atria and Vanta lounge chairs offer this kind of immersive comfort.

Occasional Chairs

More upright and compact, occasional chairs suit formal living rooms, bedrooms, and dining areas where space is at a premium but style is non-negotiable.

Positioning for Impact

The conversation triangle: Place your accent chair at an angle to the sofa, creating a triangular seating arrangement. This encourages face-to-face interaction and feels more inviting than parallel seating.

The reading corner: Position a lounge chair near a window with good natural light, add a small side table and a floor lamp, and you've created a dedicated retreat within a larger room.

The bedroom statement: A single accent chair in a bedroom corner, perhaps with a throw draped over the arm, adds luxury hotel atmosphere to your private space.

The entryway welcome: A striking chair in a hallway or entryway sets the design tone for the entire home.

Fabric and Material Considerations

For accent chairs, you have more freedom with fabric choices than with sofas, simply because they receive less daily wear:

• Bouclé: The texture of the moment, bouclé adds warmth and tactile interest. It works particularly well on sculptural forms.
• Velvet: Rich and luxurious, velvet catches light beautifully and adds depth to any colour.
• Leather: Timeless and durable, leather accent chairs develop character over time and work in both modern and traditional settings.
• Linen: Light, breathable, and perfectly suited to the Australian lifestyle. Linen chairs feel relaxed yet refined.

Colour Strategy

Your accent chair colour should relate to your existing palette in one of three ways:

1. Complementary: Choose a colour opposite your dominant palette on the colour wheel. A warm terracotta chair against cool grey tones, for example.
2. Tonal: Select a deeper or lighter shade of your existing palette for a sophisticated, layered look.
3. Neutral contrast: If your room is colourful, a neutral chair provides visual rest. If your room is neutral, a coloured chair provides the pop of interest.

Scale and Proportion

The accent chair should feel intentional in its space:

• In a large room with a grand sofa, choose a chair with visual weight — generous proportions, bold upholstery, or a strong silhouette
• In a smaller room, opt for chairs with slender legs and lighter visual mass
• The chair seat height should be within 5cm of your sofa seat height for comfortable conversation

Our Top Picks

For those looking to add an accent chair to their space, our collection includes options ranging from the sculptural Meridian — perfect as a statement piece — to the deeply comfortable Solace armchair, ideal for creating a reading retreat. Each piece is designed to stand alone as a design object while harmonising with a broader interior scheme.

Explore our full accent chair collection to find the piece that will transform your space.

Shop the Look

Explore the pieces mentioned in this article:

• Amber Orbit Swivel Chair
• Pearl Dome Swivel Chair
• Archini Living Cloud Armchair
• Graphite Sculptural Accent Chair
• browse all chairs