In most of the photographic renditions of the Slice Café + Dining Chairs by Graypants, the designers have chosen to emphasize the products’ authenticity. These are full color photos with tight close-ups of the intricate bentwood and fine craftsmanship. But there’s one pic that seems straight out of a noir thriller.

Slice Cafe + Dining Chair. Designed by Graypants.

The Slice Chairs are Sustainable, FSC-Certified, and Low VOC

This last of the six scintillating images on the Graypants website shows the Slice Dining Chair in moody black and white, its long lines and sublime striations stretched out in a consuming shadow that falls on the floor behind. The eerie feel of this pic stands in stark contrast to the rest, which cumulatively show Slice for what it is—a handsome, useful, and efficiently made multi-use chair that’s a good shot in the arm of American ingenuity.

The key to Slice’s distinctive aesthetic and sustainable manufacture lies along the very lines of its tantalizing texture. Slice is constructed of FSC-Certified Eurostyle plywood (in maple or walnut) by designers Seth Grizzle and Jon Junker, whose facility with bentwood and a band saw suggests a modern-day Alvar Aalto. Grizzle and Junker have lain layer upon layer of plywood laminates side-by-side and top to bottom, with enough impromptu bends to give the piece pronounced textural appeal and superlative style.

But beyond its aesthetic allure and solid construction, Slice is also ultra green. As Graypants says, “This is one cool chair. why? because three whole chairs can be made from just one sheet of plywood… because the only waste created is sawdust… because it’s low-VOC finish is a byproduct of cheese!”

Cheese no less! One wonders if this means—once it’s time for Slice to retire—if one could simply boil it down into, perhaps, a nice Soufflé? Or maybe just scrape it into Parmesan shavings for a refreshing Caesar salad? Either way, Slice sports an impressive sustainable pedigree. It’s a beautiful and versatile chair (available in two sizes) that one can feel quite proud to own.

About the Manufacturer: Graypants is the creation of designers Jon Junker and Seth Grizzle, a pair of budding artisans and future entrepreneurs who first crossed paths in the wintry wasteland of Kent State U, where they “honed abilities to endure long winters and earned degrees in architecture + design.” Now with a decade of mutual inspiration and close collaboration behind them, they operate out of the rainy wasteland of Seattle, where they “strive to come up with designs and ideas that are thoughtful and have an impact, whether it be furniture, lighting, architecture or graphics.”