Milan 2014: German designer Hanna Emelie Ernsting has developed a chair with an integrated red blanket that wraps around the sitter like Little Red Riding Hood's cape (+ slideshow).
Designed by Hanna Emelie Ernsting and called Red Riding Hood, the piece is a round-backed, grey armchair with a grey and red blanket attached around and under the seat.
When there isn't a sitter the blanket falls, grey side down, over the back of the seat. When someone sits in it they can draw the blanket around them like a cape.
"Evenings are the time for stories, dreams and fairytales," said Ernsting. "After a strenuous workday, we long to escape for a time from everyday life and lose ourselves in the world of a book or film. These contrasting circumstances underlie the design of this armchair."
"The chair reinterprets these two facets of day and evening, work and leisure time, reality and fairyland, waking and dreaming – the rational and the whimsical," she added.
The material used is loden, a traditional German-Austrian woven wool fabric that is often used for coats because of its water and dirt-resistant qualities.
The armchair is on show in hall 13 booth D27 at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan.