Word: fritzes
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...copies of the Egg chair, for example, for a fraction of the original's $5,000 price tag. "A commercial decision was taken to use some reproduction similar chairs," Lorraine Homer, spokeswoman for McDonald's in the U.K., tells TIME via e-mail. "Whilst we wish to continue placing Fritz Hansen chairs at some restaurants, using an off-the-peg alternative allows us to re-image a greater number of restaurants...
...decision in 2006 to enlist Philippe Avanzi, one of France's leading interior designers, to develop a strategy to give 6,000-odd outlets across Europe a face-lift. Avanzi and McDonald's, in turn, engaged the services of one of the world's most highly regarded furniture producers, Fritz Hansen of Denmark, to supply chairs designed by legendary Danish Modernist Arne Jacobsen. McDonald's has called its high-profile strategy to bring upmarket style to the world's most ubiquitous restaurant the Less Is More campaign. But there may be even less than it bargained for, considering Fritz Hansen...
...McDonald's approached us some six months ago to help revitalize and revamp their European restaurants," Fritz Hansen CEO Jacob Holm told TIME in Copenhagen. "We developed Arne Jacobsen chairs in special colors and began deliveries." In particular Avanzi and McDonald's chose The Egg and The Seven chairs, two of Jacobsen's most iconic creations. Jacobsen, who died in 1971, contracted Fritz Hansen to be the sole licensed manufacturer of his designs in 1934, meaning nobody else can make an original Egg (created in 1958) or Seven (1955). Approximately 2,500 of those chairs have already been sold...
...Specifically, Fritz Hansen says that at least two London McDonald's restaurants have installed copies of Arne Jacobsen not made by the company, in some cases alongside their Arne Jacobsen chairs. McDonald's freely admits that some of its U.K. restaurants are using Jacobsen reproductions bought from U.K.-based suppliers - but says it told Fritz Hansen it would be doing...
...Homer says that there are 28 McDonald's in the U.K. that were refurbished in 2006 and fitted with all original Fritz Hansen chairs. By the end of this year, another 100 restaurants will have gone through a "re-image": some using all originals, some using reproductions and some using a combination of both. "While the reproduction chairs are naturally very similar to the original design, there are differences," says Homer. "No attempt has been made to 'pass off' reproduction chairs as originals in any references or labeling...