Owners of Emeco's iconic Navy chair can finally avoid the shock of sitting on ice-cold aluminium with these purpose-made seat pads.

The seat pads are designed to fit the famous 'bum dip' used on Emeco chairs since 1944. Each pad is made from two layers – an underlying sheet of a type of felt made from recycled plastic bottles (Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate or rPET) bonded with an upper layer of colourful wool felt.

"The classic Emeco seat has a strong shape- we call it the Emeco bones. We wanted to create a colourful seat pad that would form well and hold its shape," said Magnus Breitling, Vice President of Product, Emeco.

"We chose rPET because it is a formable synthetic felt, and bonds beautifully with the wool felt we chose for the top layer, making a 'sandwich.' Of course, rPET fits Emeco's mission of using eco-conscious recycled materials."

The materials are bonded together forming one thin pad, adding colour and warmth to the aluminium Emeco chair. The seat pads are available in a range of colours, including grey, yellow and red.

"The seat pad is designed with Emeco's simple, no-nonsense design sensibility. It's environmentally smart, feels good to the touch, and looks handsome on our chairs," said Gregg Buchbinder, President and CEO, Emeco. "The seat pad is an innovative, material-driven solution with sustainability baked in."

American furniture company Emeco was founded in 1944 to make chairs for the US Navy – the 1006 Navy Chair was originally used on submarines and battleships.

Earlier this year Oki Sato of Japanese studio Nendo unveiled a reimagined version of the Navy Chair in a new stool, called SU, which premiered at Milan design week.