The People Want a Flop Sofa (original) (raw)

By ,a Strategist writer covering décor, furniture, and garment care. They previously worked as an editor at Garage magazine.

Art: Ramón Casas; Photo: Historic Collection/Alamy

When Maddie Bailis moved out of an apartment she’d shared with roommates for eight years, she immediately got a sofa — a Ray Wilkes “Chiclet,” nicknamed for its resemblance to the candied chewing gum, an assembly of rounded slabs of foam wrapped in yellow wool. She got it from Herman Miller at a discount. “It was like buying designer shoes. You’re like, They’re so pretty, I can’t wait to wear them all the time,” she says. “And then you’re like, Wait, I can’t really do anything on this thing.”

The sofa was too small to nap on; it didn’t fit anyone over six feet comfortably. In the summer, the wool cushions were hot and itchy. When Bailis, who works as the vice-president of merchandising at the clothing company Kule, moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend a year and a half ago, they bought a Crate & Barrel Lounge sofa instead: nearly eight feet long, foam and feather cushions on a spring-loaded base, pleasant if slightly generic silhouette. “I thought it would not gel very well because I have a lot of mid-century-modern furniture,” she says. “But honestly, it’s so neutral and inoffensive, and it’s the most comfortable thing. I only have positive things to say about it.”

Bailis is not alone: I talk to people about furniture constantly, and I’ve noticed a vibe shift in the way prospective buyers talk about what they want from a couch. Sure, it should look nice, but it has to be comfortable — deep seats, pillowy yet supportive cushions, soft fabric you don’t have to worry about maintaining. Friends who bought chic little wood-framed daybeds ten years ago now want something they can full-body flop onto. Searches for mid-century-modern sofas are declining, whereas “boneless sofa” — a semi-ironic name for an all-cushion sofa with no hard frame — has spiked. In recent years, I’ve seen more dupes of the RH Cloud — a $5,000 sofa stuffed with so much down that it requires constant refluffing — than any other style.

Explanations for the trend are abundant. Perhaps all the time we spent alone during the COVID-19 pandemic fostered a complex emotional attunement to our sofas; maybe they’re the object of displaced anxiety in a chaotic time. Maybe it’s the pendulum swinging away from the _Mad Men_–influenced furniture of the 2010s, and millennials disillusioned with their splintered, saggy West Elm Peggys are seeking heft and durability; maybe self-optimizers are comfort-maxxing their living rooms. Sofia Celeste, a senior correspondent at Women’s Wear Daily who covers home and interiors, says that “furnishings are not just more comfortable than ever, they are also modular, versatile, and adaptable” to appeal to young city dwellers “in a frenetic digital age.” Or maybe we’re all paying so much for our homes that we can’t stomach the thought of wasting floor space on something we don’t actually enjoy.

Interior designer Sally Breer made her own big comfy couch — a sectional with a 36-inch-deep seat cushioned with latex foam and down, upholstered in a striped fabric that’s easy to clean and can handle wear and tear. I asked her what you can do on it that you couldn’t on something design-y but stiff. “Literally everything,” she said. “You can’t be funny on an uncomfortable chair. Sure, you can sit there and have a cocktail and talk, but the comfy sofa is a different animal. You can nap, you can lounge, you can be flirty.”

I think this is the real allure of the big comfy couch: It’s a way of asserting that furniture should fit your life and not the other way around, and that when you buy something big and expensive, you should expect to enjoy using it. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the furniture beat, it’s that attunement to your space — how it makes you feel, what delights you, what you avoid — matters more than replicating a style you’ve seen somewhere else. If you love it, it will look beautiful; let the soft animal of your body love the couch it loves.

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