POLTRONA FRAU VANITY FAIR XC IN MOTION: A FUTURIST GESTURE IN LEATHER

Poltrona Frau’s latest limited edition begins with an object that already carries considerable history. For its 40th anniversary of the In Motion Business Unit, the Italian furniture house has revisited the Vanity Fair XC, giving its sculptural form a dramatically different visual language through the work of Futurist artist Ivo Pannaggi.

The result, Vanity Fair XC In Motion, is limited to just 40 individually numbered pieces. Rather than treating the anniversary as an exercise in nostalgia, the project looks at movement as a continuing source of creative energy, connecting an early 20th-century artistic vocabulary with the technical and manufacturing culture that has shaped Poltrona Frau In Motion for four decades.

At the centre of the design is Dinamismo assoluto della mano sinistra (Absolute Dynamism of the Left Hand), created by Ivo Pannaggi, an important figure associated with the second wave of Italian Futurism. Pannaggi’s composition is built around force lines, gestures, and a sense of kinetic tension rather than a literal depiction of transportation. On the Vanity Fair XC, that language acquires a new physical dimension.

The artwork is reproduced through high-definition digital printing on Pelle Frau® ColorSphere Impact Less leather. Its warm palette moves through gold, amber, ochre, burnt orange, coral red, and tobacco tones, creating a surface that appears to amplify the chair’s rounded silhouette and envelop it in a sense of continuous movement. The pattern does not simply sit on the upholstery; it interacts with the structure beneath it, making the chair itself part of the composition.

This relationship between image and object is particularly fitting for the Vanity Fair XC. The contemporary chair is an evolution of the original Vanity Fair armchair designed by Renzo Frau in 1930, a design that has remained closely associated with the visual identity of the company. Poltrona Frau’s own history records 1930 as the year in which Vanity Fair was introduced, during a period when the brand was already expanding its influence across interiors, ocean liners, and emerging automotive applications.

For the limited edition, the chair becomes a canvas without losing its identity as a piece of furniture. The contrast is deliberate: the familiar upholstered volume remains recognisable, while Pannaggi’s dynamic artwork introduces an expressive layer that belongs to a very different moment in Italian design history.

That dialogue also explains why the hand is so central to the project. Poltrona Frau describes its guiding philosophy through the phrase “Intelligence in Our Hands”, a principle that connects the physical skill of craftsmanship with design thinking. Pannaggi’s artwork, meanwhile, places the hand at the centre of its visual expression, treating gesture as an embodiment of energy and creative force. The correspondence gives the collaboration a conceptual coherence beyond the anniversary itself.

The 40th anniversary refers specifically to Poltrona Frau In Motion, the business unit through which the company has developed interiors for automotive, aviation and marine applications. Its roots reach further back: Poltrona Frau had already been producing bespoke automotive interiors during the 1920s and 1930s, including collaborations involving Vincenzo Lancia. The dedicated In Motion Business Unit was established in 1986, with the Lancia Thema 8.32 project — equipped with a Ferrari engine — among its early milestones.

Over the following decades, this specialist activity developed a distinct expertise in environments where craftsmanship must coexist with demanding technical requirements. Automotive cabins, aircraft interiors and yacht spaces all require an understanding of materials, ergonomics, precision and durability. Vanity Fair XC In Motion translates that culture back into the domestic setting, but retains the idea that design can be both tactile and technologically informed.

Poltrona Frau itself dates to 1912, when Sardinian-born Renzo Frau founded the company in Turin and registered the Poltrona Frau name with the city’s Chamber of Commerce. Its early work drew on English, French and Central European furniture traditions before developing a distinctly Italian design language. By the 1920s and 1930s, the company had established relationships with the Royal House of Savoy, prestigious interiors, cinema and the emerging automotive industry. In 1963, following its acquisition by the Nazareno Gabrielli Group, the company moved from Turin to Tolentino in the Marche region, where leather manufacturing remains central to its identity.

That long history makes the Vanity Fair XC an apt foundation for the anniversary project. Its form belongs to Poltrona Frau’s furniture heritage, while its new covering introduces the visual language of a movement that once sought to express speed, energy and modernity through art.

The limited edition is also conceived with the characteristics of a collectible in mind. Each of the 40 armchairs carries a gold-finished brass plaque on its back bearing the product name and individual edition number, and each is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Poltrona Frau states that the edition is initially available through its e-commerce operation in 14 European countries, with subsequent availability planned through selected authorised retailers worldwide.

For collectors and design enthusiasts in the UAE, Poltrona Frau’s official store locator currently lists two Dubai locations: its Jumeirah showroom at 653 Jumeirah Road, Umm Suqeim 1, and its Mall of the Emirates store in the Fashion Dome on Level 2. Both are listed as Poltrona Frau locations within the brand’s current global retail network.

The Vanity Fair XC In Motion ultimately succeeds as an anniversary piece because its references do not remain confined to the past. Renzo Frau’s 1930 armchair, Pannaggi’s Futurist artwork and four decades of specialised interior manufacturing meet in a single object whose central idea is movement — not merely as physical travel, but as an ongoing process of making, adapting and imagining.

In that sense, the edition reflects something fundamental about Italian design at its most compelling: heritage becomes most relevant when it is given room to move. Here, a historic chair becomes the ground for a new artistic gesture, preserving the intelligence of the original form while allowing it to speak in a distinctly contemporary visual language.