Generally speaking, two types of furniture have always been aboard yachts. Some designers pluck sofas and chairs from home stores and bolt them through so they will stay put in a seaway, while other designers create custom, built-in boating furniture. Both solutions work in their own ways, with the home pieces often being more stylish, and the built-ins generally offering more practical features such as undercushion stowage.
The new Jacques-Yves line of modular furniture is aiming to be both. It’s the brainchild of the team at Zuccon International Project, which has long worked with yachtbuilders such as Ferretti Group and Sanlorenzo, and the team at Poltrona Frau Custom Interiors, which increased its focus on the yachting sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Boats, and yachts in particular, are seen as private islands guaranteeing their owners not only comfort but also safety,” Poltrona Frau CEO Nicola Coropulis said in announcing the furniture line. “That is why we have been developing products specifically for the yachting world with Zuccon International Project.”
The Jacques-Yves line is a modular seating system that’s intended for indoor or outdoor use on board. It is available in a variety of finishes. Poltrona Frau leather and fabrics are offered for indoor use, with waterproof fabrics for outdoor placement. Each piece has generous volume—note the size of the cushioned area shown above—but that volume is contained within compact dimensions, to work within the limited space of, say, a yacht salon or aft deck. Elements such as armrests and seat depth are reduced in a way that the teams say maintains comfort, and stowage is built into the seats below the cushions.
“Designing a sofa for the yachting market was both an unusual and a fascinating challenge,” Bernardo Zuccon said. “The real turning point in approaching a project so different from those I am used to was applying all my baggage of experience in the world of yachts to designing a sofa that really does solve the problems raised by its unusual location: an environment that moves on water.”
