Hopes flax chair will impress Paris

The Revology design-tech start-up team  (from left) co-founder and legal director Monique Kelly,...
The Revology design-tech start-up team (from left) co-founder and legal director Monique Kelly, chief executive and founder Alex Guichard, marketing director Arna Craig, creative director Philippe Guichard, and mechanical engineer Pedro Pimentel have...

A Wanaka design-tech start-up will unveil a chair made from flax at an international trade show in Paris next week.

The flax fibre bistro-style chair was designed by Revology.

Marketing director Arna Craig said the 1920s-inspired chair was made using resin and flax.

"Composites and bio-based materials have been used in aviation and automotive industries for a long time, but people have always been quite conservative with using them because it is not traditionally glamorous.

"They are materials that have not been used in this way before so this is an opportunity to show how they can be used to create something really amazing.''The design was patented so she could not go into specific details.

"What I can say is you take a piece of flax and turn it into a yarn and then you press that yarn into a tube and then you fill that tube with another organic matter so that it is hard and can be moulded into the shape that you want.''

Revology founder Alex Guichard said working with bio-based composite materials was a unique challenge.

"It is effectively complicated to mould certain biocomposites without degrading them.''

The chair will be unveiled at the JEC Composites trade show in Paris, at which about 80,000 people are expected over three days.

Mrs Craig said if the show was successful, the company hoped to refine the chair before putting it on the market and recruit "the best people from around the world'' so further products could be made.

margot.taylor@odt.co.nz

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