When it comes to rattan furniture, beauty is a lot more than skin deep.

Take, for example, the rattan café chair. The sleekly curving, sinuous lines are reminiscent of the elegant flow of decorative wrought iron.

But don’t be fooled by all that grace and beauty. Rattan also happens to be one of nature’s strongest materials.

Rattan (unlike bamboo, with which it is sometimes confused) is a solid timber vine. It is ideal for furniture making because while the outer part of the vine is extremely hard and durable, the porous inner portion is soft and flexible.

So, unlike the mighty oak, rattan is not prone to splintering and breakage. In fact, when heated with steam or a blowtorch, rattan becomes so pliable it can be bent into those wonderful curves reminiscent of wrought iron without the usual danger of cracking common to most wood.

Thus rattan gives us the best of both worlds: the durability and flexibility of wrought iron coupled with the natural warmth of wood.

It also brings something of the exotic to any room or patio. Rattan is harvested in the dense and nearly inaccessible jungles of Borneo, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Thailand, and the Philippines, where this sturdy vine grows year-round.

How amazing, then, to see this wild jungle plant transformed into elegant seating. Rattan seems as at home in the sophisticated sidewalk cafes of Paris and the bustling bistros of Las Vegas as it once did in the jungles of Borneo.

Elegant. Strong. Exotic. Indeed, rattan is pretty amazing.

Gregory Kerwin was born in the United States but raised in his grandmother’s houses in Paris and Southern France, so it seems only natural that when he opened his first shop in Manhattan’s Soho in 1983, he would bring with him a touch of Parisian style. This same dedication to French hand craftsmanship is reflected today in his New York Design Center Showroom at 200 Lexington Avenue in New York City, which features hand forged French wrought iron along with the custom handcrafted French café chairs that have remained a hallmark of Parisian sidewalk cafes for the past hundred years. You can see these Parisian treasures at http://tkcollections.com/

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By Gregory Kerwin Platinum Quality Author