The most glamorous garden furniture

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What are the non-negotiables of a comfortable living space? A sofa you can sink into and a soft rug underfoot. A coffee table for storage and layered lighting that transforms a room from day to night. These are staples, whether you are furnishing a space inside or outside the home.

As many homeowners embrace the concept of indoor-outdoor living – their optimism resolute despite the ever-changing weather – the choices of furniture have become more sophisticated. Those fold-out tables and chairs dragged out of the garage each year won’t cut it in the blossoming world of glamorous gardens. Instead, we are being seduced by furnishings that mirror the style and comfort of those selected for the home’s most beautifully appointed reception rooms. The options are virtually the same. A large corner sofa configuration, capacious marble dining table or designer lamp – these are elements that can be used as focal points for a space. Some interior designers are also specifying furniture that is identical for both inside and out, creating a seamless aesthetic from living room to garden – the only points of difference being weatherproof materials and fabrics. 

Clash prints confidently, from bold botanicals to geometric motifs

When designing an outdoor space, think of it as an additional room in your home and furnish it accordingly with key pieces which can be layered with fabrics and accessories. In the Clapham garden, pictured above, designer and horticulturist Tony Woods of Garden Club London has created a sophisticated lounging space – the dense planting providing a backdrop to a corner sofa overlooked by a giant arched lamp, taking the space from day to night. There are co-ordinated outdoor collections – spanning chairs to tables, outdoor rugs and lighting – that can tie a look together effortlessly, many created by international designers, including Vincent Van Duysen, Patricia Urquiola and Piero Lissoni. And if you’re into furniture pieces with provenance, you could also be reclining en plein air on a chair conceived by Le Corbusier, Perriand and Jeanneret in the 1920s or by Gio Ponti in the 1950s.

The latest looks pair strong silhouettes with colourful, pattern-rich fabrics. Prints pack a punch, from bold botanicals to geometric motifs. Clash them confidently for a cool, eclectic vibe. Comfort is key: new collections feature wide, generous seating with a squishy feel that you can settle into. Here are our go-tos for garden glamour – in rain or shine.

Create a Corbusier and clan corner

Designed by Le Corbusier, Perriand and Jeanneret in 1928, the 3 Fauteuil Grand Confort chair and sofa has become an archetype of modernist design. Whether the trio envisaged their polished chrome tubular steel frame furniture – a visual metaphor of the spirit of the modern age – ever gracing the garden is difficult to say, but you can now recline in them in versions upholstered in waterproof fabrics. Design house Cassina also offers alfresco versions of Thomas Rietveld’s Utrecht armchair, and an adaptation of Gio Ponti’s famed Leggera chair – made possible using construction techniques from Formula One. 

Go full-on flower power

Botanical prints are nothing new in garden furniture but the latest collections fuse floral flourishes with bold colour pops and geometric motifs. Strong silhouettes and glossy surfaces add an edge. One collection that ticks these boxes – and which will be on show at London Design Festival in September – is this Kartell x Liberty collaboration. The London department store’s historic prints elevate Kartell’s Plastics sofa, Trix pouffe and Cara armchair in complementary colours, as well as Philippe Starck’s H.H.H. – Her Highest Highness chair. 

Parade your prints

The Facciata Quattrocentesca motif – a series of arched windows evocative of the Italian Renaissance – was discovered in two previously unseen notebooks at the Piero Fornasetti archives. The artist and designer transferred his fanciful creations onto furniture and interiors, and had a working relationship with Italian maestro Gio Ponti for some 20 years. The tradition goes on, most recently with outdoor furniture, which includes this Facciata Quattrocentesca sofa. Register your interest at fornasetti.com.

Weave a narrative

Belgian architect-designer Vincent Van Duysen, a master of reductive design, has an eye for proportion and detail that is evident in his Boboli outdoor furniture for Molteni & C, marrying solid teak frames with generous cushioning and backrests hand-woven with polypropylene fibre ribbons. His Petalo high-back armchair has a merlot-red solid aluminium frame woven with ecru polypropylene rope. Other Molteni & C designers pushing the possibilities include creative duo Yabu Pushelberg. Their Sway modular sofa system, also shown, consists of 11 pieces with ergonomic seats and polyurethane rope weaving. Use them as standalone pieces or combined together.

Get your ’70s groove on

The late French designer Pierre Paulin’s furniture is evocative of ’70s cool. Sexy, sinuous and low slung, one of his most memorable designs is the 1975 Pacha lounge chair, a piece still coveted today. This one can adorn an outdoor terrace or garden-scape in waterproof Dedar fabric.

Make it timeless 

John Danzer, a collector of garden furniture, gave up a career in finance to pursue his passion, giving his first lecture on Garden Furniture Design History at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He is now behind Munder-Skiles, which creates artisanal-made reproductions of classic pieces in teak, painted mahogany, stainless steel, aluminium, rattan, bronzed brass and punched metal. This is the Albarda dining armchair – it’s pictured in teak but is also available in mahogany, if painted, and armless as a side chair. 

Create an alfresco living room

This sofa would set a contemporary tone in any interior but is designed for outdoor living. Which model you go for depends on personal style. This Lipari Outdoor two-seat sofa by Massimiliano Raggi for Sicis is elevated by a tropical print.

Plump for pops of colour

No one does colourful carnivalesque quite like Moroso. Its outdoor Banjooli chair – the shape with sweeping armrests inspired by “the mating dance of male ostriches” – has become something of a summer staple, and this high-back Husk armchair by Marc Thorpe, inspired by the outer shell of corn, comes in equally eye-catching pops of yellow and red.

Warmer with wicker

A sofa you can sink in and a couple of roomy armchairs is all that’s required to create a garden retreat. These ones, handwoven in all-weather wicker, have a timeless feel with deep cushions in a waterproof woven fabric.

Sturdy metal – but stylish 

The Italian-Danish design duo Enrico Fratesi and Stine Gam, known as GamFratesi, merge traditional techniques with the latest technology. Their outdoor explorations include this Mirabell sofa for Poltrona Frau – a design inspired by the elegance of 20th-century French metal benches, reimagined as a lightweight powder-coated aluminium frame supporting deep cushions that can be upholstered in weatherproof fabric or leather.

Solo standouts

One should always have a focal point for a room – whether indoors or out. This Amalfi outdoor chair by Patrick Naggar at Ralph Pucci is suitably sculptural.