The Corsetto Armchair by Molteni&C Is the Kind of Piece You Buy Once and Never Replace

There are chairs that furnish a room and chairs that define it. The Corsetto, designed by Argentine designer Cristián Mohaded for Italian furniture house Molteni&C and unveiled at NYCxDesign 2026, is unmistakably the kind that defines a piece that doesn't sit quietly in a corner so much as it sets the terms for everything around it.

The name is the first clue to its logic. Named after the Italian word for "corset," the chair has an oversized, curved form girdled by a leather belt that sweeps up from its solid base, gently cinching the sides of the textile-covered seat and arms. It is a deceptively simple gesture, but it does all the work. The armchair embodies a controlled sculptural tension, with its leather and fabric actively shaping the silhouette rather than merely covering the frame. The plush volume looks as though it is being held—contained, structured, and kept from spilling over, and that quiet restraint is precisely what imparts the piece its character.

Mohaded describes the intention in almost bodily terms. The chair was born, he has said, from the gesture of soft yet bold volumes pressed into a clean and defined form, an attempt to create a silent tension between something generous and welcoming yet contained within a structure, a piece that feels alive, breathing, and is perceived as a living element in itself. The result is something both enveloping and architecturally precise: generous enough to actually sit in for extended periods and considered enough to hold its presence in a room with confidence. The balanced proportions make it feel inevitable rather than designed, which is the key distinction between timeless and dated upholstered furniture.

The collaboration is itself worth dwelling on. Salone del Mobile 2026 marked Mohaded's debut project for the house, and he speaks of it with genuine reverence, calling Molteni & C a living history of Italian design with a solid cultural and productive foundation—one that represents an idea of design that is rigorous, precise, and deeply connected to contemporary architecture and interiors. Born in Catamarca, Argentina, in 1980, Mohaded built his practice on a process-oriented, understated sculptural sensibility, working closely with Argentine artisans and traditional crafts—a background that registers in the Corsetto's tactile, hand-considered quality.

It is a fitting pairing. Founded by Angelo Molteni in 1934, the company sits in Giussano, in the Brianza region north of Milan, the historic heart of Italy's furniture industry, and has spent decades building what might be called a design family, a lineage of collaborations running from Afra and Tobia Scarpa and Aldo Rossi to Patricia Urquiola, Jasper Morrison, Michael Anastassiades, and, now, Mohaded. The chair has always been a privileged object for the house, and the Corsetto enters that conversation rather than simply joining the catalog.

The chromatic sensibility is warm without being decorative, and there is a quiet Art Deco quality to the overall character of the piece understood more as a mood than as a stylistic reference. Upholstered in fabrics and leathers from the Molteni&C collection, it keeps its form while allowing for flexible expression, resting on a rigid base that stabilizes the composition and balances the generous upholstered shell. It is the kind of armchair that looks better in ten years than it does today, which is the only real measure of whether a piece of furniture is worth the investment.

Corsetto is part of the Molteni&C 2026 Collection. www.molteni.it