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From dining chairs to handwoven headboards, chances are you’ve come across a rattan chair or vintage furniture piece at some point and fallen in love. A perfect foil for the chill of industrial steel or the sleek grandeur of marble, rattan is a natural material that infuses a space with warmth and a sort of tiki-woodsy elegance. These days, modern designers are recognizing the diverse appeal of rattan, incorporating rattan cane and rattan weaving into a variety of projects, from outdoor furniture sets, to bedrooms, dining rooms, and home offices. The natural accent material can evoke boho ease, Asian artistry, or mid-century sophistication.
But what is it about rattan that makes it so well-loved? Does that rattan chair or end table belong on a floral area rug in the kitchen, or should you save rattan pieces for outdoor use? And what is rattan, anyway—is it a man-made fiber? Wood? An exotic vine? Rattan versus wicker—is there a difference? Here, AD PRO has everything you need to know.
Calico wallpaper and a vintage rattan bed in the home of Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, which was designed by AD PRO Directory member Studio DB
Rattan is a tough, adaptable vining or climbing plant that thrives in tropical jungle settings. Native to Asia, the vining palm (sometimes spelled ratan) can grow as large as 500 feet long and several inches in diameter.
You can find a plethora of information online about the more than 600 species of uniquely adaptable “old world climbing palms” that fall under the umbrella category of rattan. (You might also learn some new, romantic nature vocabulary along the way—like liana, a word for plants that, like rattan, root in the soil at ground level and then climb nearby trees toward the sunlight.)
A member of the same plant family as palm trees, rattan is lightweight (like bamboo) and naturally bug-resistant, with surprising strength and durability. It’s become known around the world for its tough yet flexible vines, which are used to make sturdy, long-lasting baskets, chairs, sofas, walking sticks, tables, bed frames, boxes, and other decor items. Furniture and objects made from rattan can typically withstand extreme rain, sun, and various weather conditions, often lasting several lifetimes.
“Rattan vines are similar to bamboo, but with a solid core that’s strong enough to be bent into graceful shapes and used as framing for chairs, tables, and sofas,” explains Wisconsin designer Teresa Manns, a pro known for her conceptual blending of New York grit and Midwest charm. “There’s a certain appeal in the versatility and enduring charm of rattan.”
The most diverse assortment of different rattan palm species can be found in the old-growth tropical forests of Southeast Asia, though types of rattan also grow around other tropical regions of the continent. Today, most rattan is sourced from the Philippine islands, where the vines are cut and straightened into uniform logs measuring 13 feet each, before being sold for constructing furniture and other objects.
A rattan furniture maker at Maison Gatti’s workshop
The most popular use for rattan, by far, is making furniture. To make rattan furniture, artisans boil, torch, steam, or otherwise heat the rattan poles until they become malleable enough to fit into shaped molds. Once bent into their desired shapes, the rattan poles are nailed in place at the joints, then left to cool and dry as they harden into their final forms. Once set, the areas where two pole edges meet are bound by wrapping a flat fiber (called bury) for reinforcement. In lieu of bury, some artisans fill the spaces between tightly stacked rattan poles with something called a scia vine—a thin, rounded, ornamental material that adds texture and intricacy to the furniture design.
The owner of Dagot Rattan Crafts and Furniture making rattan tables and chairs in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines
Rattan is as surprisingly durable as it is eye-catching. Many vintage collectors have stories of finding a century-old sofa frame in flawless condition, or inheriting a prized rattan piece from a parent, grandparent, or even great-grandparent. Ranging in color from shades of pale gold to warm chestnut brown, the material adds an unmistakable, subtly tropical warmth to any space.
Manns first encountered rattan at a Paris flea market, when she stumbled upon a matching rattan set complete with loveseat, chairs, and cocktail table. “I was blown away that, despite the age of the pieces, they were still solid and sturdy,” she says. “In my opinion, people love rattan because of that tortoise-like patterning of the vine. It adds visual depth and draws you closer to admire the intricacy. People are attracted to that unique texture, and the sense of warmth and elegance the material conveys.”
Claiborne Swanson Frank’s Greenwich Village family home, designed with Asia Baker Stokes, features a vintage rattan coffee table.
So how do you know if the rattan sofa set you’ve stumbled upon is truly a valuable find? Here are some tips for finding and selecting the best possible rattan pieces for your client’s interior or patio project.
In general, the most highly valued rattan pieces are the ones with the greatest number of tightly stacked individual poles or strands that are manipulated together to create the form. Most rattan furniture features between 2 and 10 strands, with 6 being the most sought-after number. (Finding intact vintage pieces with over 10 these days is nearly impossible, according to most collectors.)
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Other things to look for when choosing rattan pieces include the quality of the color and texture (dark spots and blemishes in the grain can lower the value), the sharpness of the bends (tighter curves are harder to achieve and thus more sought-after), and the intricacy of the wrapping around the joints where two poles meet. Often, the more elaborate the wrapping of the bury, the more valuable the piece of rattan furniture may be.
The natural material of rattan has long been beloved and promoted by a wide array of personalities. One of its most notable recent boosters, the aerospace-engineer-turned-rattan-dealer Harvey Schwartz, whose lifelong love of rattan led him to found multiple successful companies (including the iconic Tropical Sun Rattan in Van Nuys, which supplied furniture for the set of The Golden Girls) and amass the largest collection of vintage rattan furniture in the world. In addition to restoring, recreating, and selling vintage rattan pieces for nearly 50 years, Schwartz has also published several books on the subject (some of which were used as references for this article).
One of the most iconic rattan set pieces: Blanche Devereaux’s living room from The Golden Girls
For many, rattan has nostalgic appeal, recalling the interior of a childhood beach house or Grandma’s cozy Florida room. It’s easy to picture the perfect rattan console table resting in the entryway of a secluded lake house, or a chic rattan patio set stealing the spotlight at a porch party in Miami’s Art Deco district. Rattan is casual but elegant—it’s chameleonic and convenient.
Alexander Adducci, a senior designer at 210 Design House, says the flexibility and durability of natural rattan are two key features that make it particularly easy to love. But despite its potential diversity of uses, rattan pieces are often relegated to traditionally laid-back outdoor and patio spaces. “Conventionally, rattan furniture finds its place primarily in sunrooms and occasionally outdoors, depending upon the type of rattan and its exposure to environmental elements. Its aesthetic blends well with casual and tropical-inspired decor styles,” he says. In patio and outdoor decor, rattan is typically used to create chair, loveseat, and sofa frames, as well as bases for side tables and coffee tables.
Adeline Coffee Table in Natural Honey Rattan
Still, can rattan get wet? Unfortunately, despite its popularity in outdoor-adjacent spaces like sunrooms and porches, the natural material is susceptible to mold and rot—so it isn’t advisable to expose beloved rattan pieces directly to the elements. (For a rattan look with a weatherproof finish, there are synthetic options on the market.)
Manns likes to incorporate rattan in projects where the brief mentions keywords like traditional, transitional, warm, collected, or well-traveled. “What I love about rattan furnishings is that they are easy to update through the generations,” she says. “Unlike fully upholstered sofas or chairs, the expense of updating a rattan piece is minimal, since cushions are typically unattached to the frame.”
A rattan table and chairs in a street cafe on the island of Koh Phangan, Thailand
Because of its shade and texture, rattan is often mistaken for other organic materials, like bamboo. Though sometimes woven together in a single piece of furniture, rattan differs from bamboo in strength. Rattan is a sturdy, solid vine, whereas bamboo is actually a hollow form of grass. Visually, the two materials are easy to differentiate as well: Rattan features tortoise-shell or wood-grain-like patterning, but bamboo is characterized by a smooth surface interrupted at even intervals by its signature horizontal growth ridges.
Is rattan the same as wicker? Not exactly, though the two sometimes get confused. Wicker actually refers to the method of weaving reeds together, rather than to the material itself. Today, most wicker furniture is woven using rattan, though some wicker makers prefer to use raffia, bamboo, or willow reeds.
Another close relative, cane, is actually made from the same plant as rattan. The furniture-making material we call rattan, however, comes from the inner reeds of the vine, while cane is made using the outer bark.
Many species of rattan require exposure to biodiversity in order to flourish. In other words, they don’t thrive in a monoculture; they crave the dissimilar—which may be the reason Calamoideae has enjoyed such success living alongside people since ancient times. The large subfamily of palms currently includes over 600 individual plant species—all of which are found in the Afro-Eurasian tropics. That means habitat encroachment and climate change pose serious threats to the material’s existence. That being said, rattans are also brilliant adapters we could learn from—especially when it comes to thriving in dissonance.
A rattan rocking chair in an interior by Jean Caillette
Following centuries of extensive use in tropical and subtropical Asia, species of rattan were first brought to the British Empire in the early 19th century by army and navy families returning from being stationed in the Pacific during World War II. Despite the cooler European climates, the rattan mementos they brought home held up nicely. As bamboo furniture and similar options gained popularity in Western decor, rattan became a staple for patios and decks, and eventually many of its admirers brought their rattan table-and-chairs sets indoors.
By the next century, the material had reached the Americas: US homeowners jumped on the bandwagon and began importing rattan furniture from the Philippines via steamships. Despite the equatorial origins, rattan pieces from this time period (1920s, ’30s, and ’40s) tend to display Victorian tastes, as that was the popular preference at the time. But soon, rattan tables and chairs began showing up in Hollywood movies and TV sets, conjuring a vibe of laid-back, exotic-island luxury that led to a huge uptick in the material’s popularity and a new interior decor style (sometimes called Tropical Deco or Hawaiiana).
“I can’t recall my first encounter with a piece of rattan furniture, but to me it has always been incorporated into design as a form of relaxation and escapism,” says Jamie Bayer, a Nashville-based vintage collector and seller at Dashwood Vintage (who uses the handle @possumshouseofrattan on Instagram). “During the late 1940s and early 1950s, bamboo furniture (which most people called rattan, whether made from bamboo or not) was popularized as a response to World War II ending,” she says. Rattan became an aspirational symbol, as “America looked towards Polynesian culture to inspire an easy, breezy way of life…thus starting the ongoing American obsession with tiki culture.”
By the ’40s and ’50s, California furniture designers like Calif-Asia, Paul Frankl, Herbert Ritz, and Don Loper began developing new methods and silhouettes for rattan furniture. (Frankl’s iconic Pretzel Arm chair is one notable example.) Some even began experimenting with different colored alternatives to bury for wrapping the rattan poles. Unfortunately some of these changes may have contributed to the downfall of rattan’s popularity, as these newer, more modern rattan pieces were seen by some as inferior to the earlier styles.
72 Collection Rattan Sofa by Gabriella Crespi
According to Bayer, rattan became associated with bohemianism in the ’60s and ’70s, which she considers more closely aligned with the aesthetics of the current rattan resurgence. Big names in rattan in the ’70s and ’80s included architect and furniture maker Henro Olko—who created beautiful, sought-after tables, sofa frames, and chairs using pliable bamboo, willow, rattan, and leather-wraps—and Milanese designer Gabriella Crespi, whose cult-following recently rejoiced when the designer’s daughter put her rattan-and-bamboo-heavy Bohemian 72 Collection (previously only available to private clients) into production for the first time. Intricate rattan club chairs from Olko’s 1979 Tiara Collection still go for soaring prices on the vintage market.
In recent years, interior designers like Robert McKinley (known for his playfully sophisticated hospitality projects) and Eyeswoon founder Athena Calderone have incorporated more tropical, textural materials like natural rattan in their designs. Both have said they draw design inspiration from Crespi’s use of rattan to evoke easy luxury.
Rattan furniture finds a home in this festive interior project by Bradley Odom.
“Over the past five years, I’ve noticed that designers and homeowners are updating rattan with high-gloss paint finishes, allowing the texture of the vine to shine through,” says Manns. “With the resurgence of interest in brown furniture, incorporating rattan pieces is a fantastic way to create a more casual atmosphere, and the natural color of rattan complements this trend beautifully.” One of her favorite rattan makers is Bielecky Brothers, of Queens, New York: “They’ve been handcrafting incredible rattan pieces since 1903, and I seize every chance I get to incorporate their work.”
Adducci says he’s noticed a trend in designers and homeowners incorporating rattan as shades for light fixtures or as a wrapping material for the units’ structural components. In fact, rattan pendant lights ranging from high-end boho artworks to minimalist Scandi-inspired designs are having a moment right now: Check out the full spectrum of elaborate, Scandinavian-ish pendant lamps from Arteriors, luxe-budget options like the Headlands Bell Pendant from Serena and Lily, and of course, the slew of Ikea offerings. The sculptural qualities of rattan seem to invite endless experimentation, as artisans tinker with newer, ever more intricate silhouettes. (See Serena and Lily’s palm-tree-shaped Breakers Rattan Floor Lamp, which comes complete with coconut-shaped lights.)
In a New Orleans home designed by Lafayette Studio, French rattan chairs dating from the 1950s surround a custom table created by Chip Martinson.
But Adducci’s go-to rattan piece is a lounger—the sleek Delta Vienna Lounge Chair made by Italian furniture brand Arflex, which he praises for its modern silhouette and its “triangular, almost wing-like legs.”
When purchasing rattan furniture, it’s important to consider where and how the material was harvested. Rattan vines grow very rapidly, which makes them a potentially sustainable source for making all kinds of household furniture and objects. But as habitats decline and demand increases, the availability of rattan has drastically receded in recent years.
Initially, nearly all rattan used in making furniture was gathered from tropical rainforests, and the raw material was shipped overseas for processing and manufacturing. But with the destruction and development of large swaths of rainforest, rattan supply shortages have led officials to reconsider the way the vine is harvested, manufactured, and exported. In the 1980s, Indonesia banned exportation of raw rattan vines, hoping to boost local manufacture of rattan furniture. But because rattan vines need trees to climb in order to grow, responsible forestry plays a role in the availability of rattan. When considering rattan furniture, look for rattan materials produced in districts certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for sustainable harvesting.
Harwich Rattan Dome Pendant Light by Jake Arnold
In the end, most designers concur that the hype over rattan is well-earned. Rattan is still celebrated for its remarkable versatility, portability, and accessibility. “It can be shaped into infinite forms, but it’s relatively lightweight. And it’s accessible, in some form or another, to almost everyone, because the pricing ranges so much—from the $5,000 coffee table in a fancy LA design studio, to the old papasan chair in grandpa’s basement,” says Bayer. “I love that there’s such a spectrum of options available.” Commending the material’s ability to reinvent itself over the ages, Bayer sums it up: “Rattan is basically the Madonna of furniture.”
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