Mirth and girth

Modern furniture -- revered or reviled for its skeletal lines and anemic colors -- has been putting on a few pounds. At the International Contemporary Furniture Fair that ended here Tuesday, thin bands of stainless steel were paired with hefty hardwoods on chair arms, and upholstery shed its bland neutrals for can’t-ignore citrus orange and piercing pink.

Things were downright homey and cushy as the usually sleek contemporary designs bulked up.

There were soft-as-cashmere alpaca pillows hand-embroidered in sky blue and salmon; a polka-dotted cranberry and yellow-squash resin table illuminated by a paper-thin light sheet; and a crescent moon-shaped bench in espresso-finish maple with creamy Ultrasuede cushions, all by first-time exhibitors.

The four-day furniture fair, the largest show of its kind in the nation, was a mix of polished high performers and newcomers hoping to grab the attention of the 17,000 showgoers, mostly architects and interior designers hunting for high-end Modernist furnishings. Contemporary design may take in only 6% to 10% of the North American pie, but that slice, which includes inexpensive lines at IKEA and Target, added up last year to $7 billion, according to the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn.

Those long devoted to sparse, functional style sought out the show’s big players for one-on-one conversations. Leif Petersen, a San Francisco distributor for several lines including Magis, greeted old friends and showed that his newest product, Konstantin Grcic’s Chair One, a red, bare-boned die-cast aluminum seat on a solid concrete cone, had a fun side: it could swivel.

Reps of Herman Miller, the 81-year-old company that is the U.S. granddaddy of classic contemporary design, reintroduced its Eames’ black Soft Pad Management office chair, which has been jazzed up for home use. It now comes in 700 choices of dyed leather, from silver rattlesnake to pink ostrich.

Henry Hall Designs of San Francisco, another show veteran among the 500 exhibitors, previewed a modular outdoor sofa that won’t be available until next year. Pure Sofa by Andrei Munteanu has a minimal teak frame and an armrest that looks as if it’s floating in space. Hall says it can be cushioned in traditional ivory and terra cotta, or his choice, bright Marimekko leaf prints.

KnollTextiles received positive reaction to its new upholstery, drapery fabrics and wall coverings that capture, in jumbo blue exclamation points and orange-red commas, the chatter of the information age. Some of the plush fabrics absorb sound.

Unlike other high-profile design shows such as the twice-yearly market in High Point, N.C., the exhibitors from 24 countries here didn’t have to compete with buyers looking for French country. “We go to lots of shows and people either get us or they don’t,” said Catherine Minervini of Prince Street House & Home in the City of Industry, which has a new residential line of carpet.

“This audience got us right away.”

Of the more than two dozen California companies exhibiting, most were show novices. The former set designers, lawyers and sheet metal workers who have set out on their own were looking for reassurance as much as future orders.

Richard Holbrook said it was lonely inside his Pasadena studio where he uses guitar construction techniques to make slim but sturdy tables of rubber wood and stainless steel. Compliments from this group of top-tier designers, marketers and critics “reinforced my evaluation of my work.”

A cork-cubed lounge chair and ottoman that first-timer Reza Feiz of Phase in Studio City brought to New York were touched by so many passersby that he joked that if he had charged a penny it would have paid for his $25,000 expense of being here. His walnut piece was wrapped in burnt orange and persimmon upholstery. His work is at Twentieth in L.A. and Troy in So-Ho , but he gathered a handful of crisp business cards from “the hottest, hippest” retailers in other big cities.

Zele Co., a design and manufacturing studio in Carpinteria, also had a successful launch.

The company, which began as an architectural and home construction firm then branched out to doors, windows and towel racks, attracted second and third looks with its new Riva chair. Weary aisle-loopers who were encouraged to slink into the chair were reluctant to leave. The chair has a stainless steel arm enveloping unpolished ebony and a sling seat of stretched English saddle leather that comes in natural colors of charcoal to light cream. Knobs at the top and bottom adjust the seat’s slope.

“We’re not trendy,” said Nurit Adizes of Zele, who pulled all-nighters with her small staff to burn CDs to pass out at the show, “so the people looking for ‘hip-hop, what’s new today?’ pass us by, but those educated in exposed structure and clean lines appreciate what we’ve done. We got the right attention from the right people and they were already comparing us to the big guys.”