Courtesy of Lucia Landa
Lucía Landa loves to give new life to old furniture, whether it’s a desk she found on the curb or a client’s well-loved antique armchair. She’s been collecting and reupholstering furniture as a hobby for years, and in 2020 she launched a custom upholstery and furniture restoration company. Lucía Landa Design is located in Ferguson.
Landa and her staff are able to take a leather-bound item and reupholster it in fabric, or vice versa. What’s most important, she says, is the weight of the material and the skills of the upholsterer.
“Upholstery is upholstery. You can upholster with almost anything as long as it is thick enough,” she says. “It’s a matter of knowing your material.”
But, Landa cautions, not every upholsterer is skilled at working with leather. It’s important to choose the right kind of leather and to know exactly how to cut and stretch it. “You need to stretch leather tightly, otherwise the heat of your body starts to loosen it,” she says. “If it’s not right, the leather will show wrinkles and can be damaged. If you ruin leather, you just have to replace it.”
Courtesy of Lucia Landa
Since leather must be stretched much tighter than most other materials, the upholsterer also needs to anticipate how much padding to use to achieve the desired result. A client should be aware, however, that a drastic change in materials—such as from fabric to leather—may also change the overall feel of a chair or other piece of furniture.
Landa, who is originally from Mexico City, is known for mixing materials in her work. Her own curated line of furniture exemplifies this. She frequently combines bold Otomi hand-embroidery with a coordinating fabric or leather—thus creating a balance between feminine and masculine, between natural and manmade.
Even with custom projects, Landa often suggests that clients use a meaningful fabric, such as embroidery created by the client’s grandmother or a pattern that relates to the family’s heritage, alongside a studier leather or solid fabric. The back of a chair, a spot that typically takes less wear and tear than the seat, is the perfect place to use these sentimental fabrics.
“[Growing up] in Mexico, the mindset was that you don’t throw [things] away,” Landa says. “You just change what needs to be changed. But you probably don’t have the fabric anymore, so that’s why it’s common to mix fabrics.”
