What did you have in mind?
Trade terms for professionals and design studios
The guest shells of the Libera family carry an American reference on their data sheet: ANSI/BIFMA X5.4-2020, tested by CATAS on the LI shell in bare polypropylene and on the LC, which adds an upholstered seat cushion. The same shells are also declared to the European EN 16139, EN 1728 and EN 1022, so one family answers two sets of references from one sheet.
Across the desk from those shells sits the Libera Soft Executive, one of the boss chairs from Italy built around a padded shell that includes the arms, with a headrest as standard and a one- or two-colour cover. It runs on a five-star aluminium base with rubber castors, a height-adjustable seat and a central-pivot tilt, or on a fixed-height four-star base on felt glides. In the MD's cabin the two shells meet: the padded armchair behind the desk, the polypropylene chairs in front of it.
Read by shell. Padded: the armchair and Libera Soft, the multipurpose chair on legs, sled or swivel bases, with tablet and row links for classrooms. Bare polypropylene: the LI chair and the LP bench on a beam. Polypropylene with a seat cushion: the LC chair and the LS bench. Orlandini Design signed the family in 2019. La Mercanti lists the guest shells and the boss chair on one line each, with the standard that applies to each, so the cabin and the waiting row are specified with one family and two different proofs.
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Three marks on two different lines, and they are not the same kind. The Libera Soft Executive catalogue carries BIG SEE Product Design Award, Winner: a won award, for the padded armchair. The catalogue of the polypropylene LI and LC shells carries the Good Design Award badge and the German Design Award 2022 as a nominee, not a win. In a client presentation each mark belongs with its own chair, and the nomination stays a nomination.
Two, both on a stackable sled base. One is made for a worktop 90 cm high, with the seat at 660 mm; the other for a worktop of 105 cm, with the seat at 760 mm. Each comes with the padded Soft shell or with the polypropylene one, and the sled stools also take the linking elements that hold seats in straight rows. Measure the worktop before choosing: the 15 cm between the two decides which one fits.
Yes, on a five-star base that swivels and adjusts in height, with rubber castors of 65 mm. Without arms the seat goes from 460 to 580 mm, with arms from 450 to 570 mm. The base is polyamide with column, base and castors all black or all white, or polished aluminium with a chromed column and black castors. Vaghi also offers hard castors, or fixed glides instead of castors, and the polypropylene shell is available on the same five-star base.
It can, with one condition: the base must be the polyamide one, black or white. On those two finishes Vaghi offers a four-star base on castors in place of the fixed glides, for the padded Libera Soft and for the polypropylene shell alike, with or without arms. On the four-star base in polished aluminium the option offered is a different one, a self-centring column. Choose the finish of the base first, because it decides which of the two options is open.
Six, each with its RAL reference: white 9003, anthracite grey 7024, taupe 1019, avio blue 5014, olive green 6003 and red brown 3011. They apply to the bare LI shell, to the LC with its seat cushion and to the shells of the beam bench. Five of them return on the elliptical metal legs of the four-leg base, where black takes the place of anthracite, so chair and frame can match, as in Vaghi's olive green photograph.
Five decisions turn the Libera Soft Executive into one precise order line: the model, the base finish, one colour or two, the covering, and the code read back before it is sent.
The Libera Soft Executive has two models. LS8G stands on a four-star aluminium base with felt glides: it swivels, the seat stays at 450 mm and it does not recline. LSC8 runs on a five-star aluminium base with rubber castors of 65 mm, a central-pivot tilt and a seat that moves from 450 to 570 mm. Everything else on the line depends on this first choice.
The last letter of the code is the base finish. On LSC8 there are three: B for white column, base and castors (RAL 9003), L for black (RAL 9017), X for a polished base with chromed column and black castors. On LS8G there are two: N for black and L for polished. The same letter can mean different things on the two models, so it is always read together with the model.
The single-colour version starts with LS. For a two-tone shell, with two fabrics or two colours, the second letter changes from S to B, so LSC8 becomes LBC8. Decide it before the covering, because a two-tone line needs two coverings named instead of one, and both are written next to the code.
The covering comes from the Vaghi programme of fabrics, leathers and vinyls, or it can be the client's own material. In that case Vaghi first checks feasibility and quantity, and the consumption per armchair is declared: 2.2 m of fabric 1.40 m wide, or 4.4 m² of leather. Multiply by the number of armchairs before the cloth is ordered.
Before the line goes out, read the five characters aloud: LBC8X is a two-tone armchair on the five-star base, polished, with a chromed column. One wrong letter changes the colour of the base or turns a two-tone chair into a plain one, and each armchair travels in its own carton exactly as it was written.
