In defence of the second-best chair

Every home has a chair that no magazine would photograph. It sags a little on the left. Its upholstery is a colour that was fashionable once. And it is the one everybody fights over when a film starts.

Designers speak of ergonomics as if comfort were a number. Sit angle, lumbar curve, seat depth. Yet the chairs people love tend to break those rules gently, and they are loved not for support but for permission: to slouch, to curl up, to put a mug on the arm.

What the research says

A small study of office furniture found that workers kept their own worn chairs long after being offered ergonomic replacements, and rated them as more comfortable even when the new ones scored higher on every measurable axis. Familiarity, it seems, is a kind of fit.

The practical lesson for anyone buying furniture is unglamorous. Sit in the thing for ten minutes, in your usual posture, and see if your body argues. Then buy the one that lets you forget about it.