The Battle to Unseat the Aeron, the World’s Most Coveted Office Chair

Like many great innovations, the Aeron was a spin on a different product that never panned out. In the late 1980s, Herman Miller, which had long outfitted offices with armchairs, desks and lamps, went after a new target: old people. They developed the Sarah, a functional foam-cushioned chair that was a serious upgrade from the bulky vinyl La-Z-Boy recliners of yore. But no stores existed to sell furniture to older adults, so the new model languished until a few years later, when Herman Miller thought to ask the Sarah’s designers to apply its underpinnings to an office chair.

Thus, in 1994, the Aeron was born, forever changing the course of office furniture. Instead of bulky foam or flashy leather, the chair—its name inspired by “aeration”—was constructed with a sleek, stretchy skin of breathable textile. A novel mechanism allowed the seat and back to recline simultaneously, accommodating the varied positions of the white-collar workers who often found themselves either hunched over their computers or tilting back for a think. Its three sizes were revelatory in a class of furniture long rooted in status-based, sexist seating lines made either for petite, female secretaries or their burly, male bosses.