Lifestyle // Men's
Chair Collector Santiago Gonzalez Can’t Sit Still
Santiago Gonzalez at NM Dallas-NorthPark
Santiago Gonzalez is a chair collector who doesn’t like to sit still.
“I am a very curious person,” Gonzalez says, standing in the handbag department at our Dallas-NorthPark store. “I can’t stay in one place too long. I get itchy.”
Gonzalez, the son and CEO of Nancy Gonzalez, has collected chairs since he was 18. His collection consists of over 600 seats.
“I was always obsessed with chairs. I don’t know why,” he says of his collection that starts with pieces from the 1930s. ”This is a very curated collection with a conservator. They go from Jean-Michel Frank and Eileen Gray to Marc Newsom.”
A rainbow of Nancy Gonzalez crocodile clutches in Martino Gampers’s “Chair with Shelves” in the Nancy Gonzalez showroom in New York.
Before arriving in Dallas for meetings with NM buyers and a handful of public appearances at Texas NM stores, Gonzalez was at our Michigan Avenue store in Chicago and before that, in Madrid for the unveiling of his collaboration with designer Aldo Bakker for Milan’s Salone del Mobile. Then more museum-hopping and business in Barcelona, and then to a family board meeting and factory visit in Colombia that followed a stop at NM Beverly Hills.
Gonzalez documents his travels and shares his eye for art on his Tumblr page, SantiGonzalez.Tumblr.com.
“You know I am around the world constantly so it’s from everywhere,” he says, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, then loading his Tumblr page. “I am constantly tumbling. I have over 9,800 followers!”
A picture of Frank Gehry’s fish that Gonzalez snapped in Barcelona and shared on Tumblr.
Gonzalez tumbles everything from cartoon crocodiles, to crocodile cupcakes to worldy art and architecture.
“You see I wish I was riding that crocodile instead of Naomi!” he says, pointing to the iconic image by photographer Jean Paul Goude. “I was on a diet so this was my one last cookie,” he says about another candid snapshot.
After Dallas he is off to Moscow, then finally home to New York.
Santiago Gonzalez shares a picture of his luggage at the airport on his way to Europe.
Shop Santiago Gonzalez men’s accessories at NeimanMarcus.com and Neiman Marcus stores.
