Specifications and Details

Well, let's just get something out of the way first -- this is an expensive chair. Wait, no. This is a really expensive chair. How expensive? Suggested retail price is roughly a thousand dollars, though I have seen it available for as low as $750 on the web. Okay, now that you've had a few moments to recover from the shock, we're going to investigate what makes a chair worth that kind of money in the first place.

The Aeron is the top-of-the line chair model from furniture design mogul Herman Miller. You may hear people refer to it in the same breath as "Herman Miller's Aeron", the way gamers expect to hear "Sid Meier's Civilization". The Herman Miller company has been designing furniture since 1923 right here in the US, in Zeeland, Michigan. The company has been historically known for producing office furniture that's not only functional, but also ergonomic and aesthetically pleasing -- the holy grail of aspiring designers.

Herman Miller operates a dealer network throughout the US, and also sells its products on the internet, at http://www.hmstore.com. We were informed by HM representatives that the Herman Miller store on-line will match the prices of any store, so going to their website would be your best bet at getting good prices. Unless you buy it locally, the chair is drop-shipped from the factory, which takes about 4 weeks. The Aeron is shipped mostly pre-built in a really large box, so assembly is quite easy.

After unpacking, the absolute first thing you will notice about the Aeron is that it's an extremely cool looking chair. It's so cool, in fact, that you will immediately be the envy of everyone sitting around you, and it will be the only topic of discussion for the first couple of hours after you set it up. Probably the most apt description of the chair I've heard is that it looks like a prop from the set of the Aliens movie. Organic, yet futuristic. In fact, the Aeron chair is so interestingly styled and designed that it has won several design awards. Heck, it's borderline furniture art!

• 1995 Interior Design Annual Design Review - Best of Category in Furniture
• Industrial Design Excellence Award
• Best New Products -- Business Week, January, 1996
• Permanant Collection in the Museum of Modern Art, New York

Side angle	Another angle