Help me remember a "back-to-back chaise longue" from TV or film. What would you call this?

litchralee@sh.itjust.works to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 99 points –

I'm trying to remind myself of a sort-of back-to-back chaise longue or sofa, probably from a scene on American TV or film -- possibly of the mid-century or modern style -- where I think two characters are having an informal business meeting. But the chaise longue itself is a single piece of furniture with two sides, such that each characters can stretch their legs while still being able to face each other for the meeting, with a short wall separating them.

That is to say, they are laying anti-parallel along the chaise longue, if that makes any sense. The picture here is the closest thing I could find on Google Images.

So my questions are: 1) what might this piece of furniture be called? A sofa, chaise longue, settee, something else? And 2) does anyone know of comparable pieces of furniture from TV or film? Additional photos might help me narrow my search, as I'm somewhat interested in trying to buy such a thing. Thanks!

EDIT 1: it looks like "tete a tete chair" is the best keyword so far for this piece of furniture

EDIT 2: the term "conversation chair" also yields a number of results, including a particular Second Empire style known as the "indiscreet", having room for three people!

38

historically, there's the french Kissing Chairs, or "tete a tete":

"tete a tete chair" turned up a lot of very relevant pictures on Google Images. I'm poised to think you've comprehensively answered the main question!

I'll have to do more digging to see if modern versions of these chairs exist and if any were featured on TV or film, but at least I know have a workable keyword. Thanks!

Damn that blue one is sick af. I would face one side to my window so my cat could look outside while I watch TV haha.

Reminds me of The Love Toilet from SNL.

Funnily enough, the reason I thought to look for this double-sided sofa is because a friend joked about a two-person toilet. This isn't what I had in mind, but it's amazing nevertheless.

Thank you for improving my happiness today!

Bit of a side question:

Other than something like a public waiting room; when/where would you want seating like this?

Home library

When all your walls are filled with book shelves, but you don't want a random couch in the middle of the room.

I feel like this is the type of item meant specifically for rich people to waste their money on. You'll never actually use it, but it does look expensive when your house guests walk past it.

I could see this used like a therapist chair, where two people will be conversing at length and would like to both be comfortable, to face each other, and don't necessarily need a table between them. It certainly would be interesting to arrange this in a space, but the closeness does evoke a sense of privacy and coziness.

The fanciness could make it workable in a space-constrained high-rise office, say Chicago or SF.

Idk.

Particularly with the rounded corners; it seems to divide/push you away from each other more than invite a conversation.

Some of the other chair examples in the comments are a bit more close and personal.

I just can't really picture any of them in a home. Maybe waiting room/lobby office furniture... 🤷

Double jumper sofa from coolsofa.com Or

Corvi one square arm chaise lounge from Wayfair.com (may be called a tete a tete chaise)

You might try searching for office furniture as that's what it sounds like you're describing. Or look into something modular like a doctor's or dentists office would use, that way you can mix and match to create the look you're going for

I remember seing this as an antique from 2 centuries ago or so. In one side would sit the young lady of the house with some dude and in the other side the chaperone

Ask that guy who identifies chairs in star trek

Bruh. It's lounge. Not longue.

Actually, its the correct spelling. “Longue” in french means long. Its more precisely, the feminine adjective for long. In this context, where the chair (“chaise” in french) is long, it fits the name well.

I think it was a joke? Difficult to tell on the internet!

Not a joke.

In English the term "chaise longue" is sometimes written as chaise lounge and pronounced /ˌtʃeɪsˈlaʊndʒ/, a folk etymology replacement of part of the original French term with the unrelated English word lounge.[2] When English speakers imported a new kind of sofa from France in the late 1700s, they transformed the name 'chaise longue' ("long chair") into 'chaise lounge'—since 'lounge' is an English word spelled with the same letters and lounging is something one can do on a "chaise longue." This variant has been documented in British[3] texts since at least 1811 and in American texts[4] since 1824.[5]

Huh, TIL!

I've never seen/heard anyone call it a chaise lounge in the UK. Or maybe I've seen it written like that and just assumed it was autocorrect.

I bet you think it's "aluminum" as well

I bet you think British spellings are inherently “superiour“.

Aluminum is the name chosen by the discoverer, by analogy from the mineral alum. Chemists choose chemical names, not English grammarians.

Yes, that's what the person who discovered it wanted to name it. However, anybody with common sense, back then and now, understands there is value in extending the ending to conform to the pattern of "-ium"s, like sodium, potassium, lithium, etc. All metals discovered since 1811 have that ending.

And what value is that? Describe it please.

Humans are great at pattern detection. So putting patterns into our language helps us understand things intuitively more easily.

I'm pretty sure someone who appreciates the nuance of a pattern emerging in 1811 is past the point of needing a consistent naming convention to identify what aluminum is.

you know how humans make more, smaller humans who know less about this world than we do? yeah, those are the ones benefiting the most from this kinda stuff, not us.

And those smaller humans have no appreciation for whether something was discovered after 1811 or before. So if you're going to be prescriptive about the spelling of aluminum, you may as well advocate for the same change in carbon, nitrogen, neon etc.

1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...
1 more...