This Is What a $20,000 Model Chair Collection Looks Like

The first thing you notice upon stepping into Anthony Sosnick's apartment is the art. Sosnick, the founder of men's grooming label Anthony , counts among his collection Gilbert & George's large-scale, color-punching Streeters, which graces his dining room, Jeff Koons's Pail , which he puts in storage during social gatherings to prevent any misuse, and, in his sons' room, Tim Beg's Enjoy It . . . While It Lasts , a playful work depicting the various stages of eating a creamsicle. Of all the museum-quality pieces throughout the home, though, it's an unexpected one that often draws the most attention: a collection of miniature chairs displayed in his foyer.

“I’ve never seen anyone who has this type of miniature collection,” Sosnick says. By his estimate, the collection is worth upwards of $20,000 at retail. “Usually someone will have two or three on a bookshelf, but I’ve never seen someone with a chair collection like this.”

After inheriting some of the chairs from his father, Sosnick decided to expand the collection, which now contains 75 models.

Counting about 75 pieces, only half of which are on display at any given moment, the collection was inherited in part from Sosnick's father. “My dad was a collector of many things, art being one of them but also miniature liquor bottles and miniature chairs,” the former real-estate developer says. “He had a huge matchbook collection, too. But I loved the chair collection; I just thought it was super cool and different and kind of interesting.” So when his father passed away, Sosnick took the initial collection of about 10 or 15 chairs and began to expand it.

“All the chairs are not bought at retail,” he says of the range, which includes quite a few styles from Vitra’s collection. (Sosnick especially appreciates Vitra's models because all are made of the same material as their life-size counterparts.) “I either go through dealers, because I get a discount, or I find these cool little places throughout my travels that happen to sell miniature chairs.” Sosnick's grooming brand has offices everywhere from Scandinavia and France to South Korea and Australia.

An Eero Aarnio Globe chair, second from left in the bottom row, is a favorite for its significance to Sosnick's childhood.

Certain models are especially sentimental for Sosnick. Pointing to a miniature Eero Aarnio Globe chair, he says, “When I grew up, we had a Globe chair in my house and that was my favorite piece of furniture." The miniature he ended up getting was from an art dealer friend. “When you’re four and five years old, you can jump in this giant globe and spin around, so finding that for me was just really incredible.” The Wassily style, too, was something he grew up around that now has a place in the collection.

“The one chair that I haven’t been able to find that I’ve been looking for everywhere and that would really round out the collection is this one,” he says, pointing to a life-size chair by the artist Richard Artwager in his living room. "I haven’t been able to find someone who makes a miniature.” But eventually he will; he always does.