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From Home Furnishing Business
Herman Miller Releases New Mexico Collection During NYCxDesign
May 6,
2025 by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry 
Herman Miller will release the New Mexico Collection on May 20, 2025, during this year's NYCxDESIGN festival, featuring two limited-run designs inspired by the creative camaraderie among Alexander and Susan Girard, Charles and Ray Eames, and New Mexico's most well-known resident of nearly 40 years, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe. The designs include the Girard Snake Table, designed by Alexander Girard, and a special version of the Eames Wire Chair Low Base, designed by the Eames Office, in the "bikini" style pairing Girard Toostripe in Ochre Dark/Sienna on a soft-white wire frame and base.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, was a hotbed of creativity in the twentieth century, attracting artists from many disciplines who found inspiration in one another's work, and included painter Georgia O'Keeffe, who moved permanently to Abiquiú, north of Santa Fe, in 1949. Alexander Girard and his wife, Susan, relocated to New Mexico from Michigan in 1953 and, through many shared interests, began a decades-long friendship with O'Keeffe. Girard informally worked with O'Keeffe on the interiors and furnishings of her now-iconic home, bringing in midcentury modern designers, including the Eameses. It was in the Girards' living room of their Santa Fe, New Mexico, residence that O'Keeffe first saw and admired a fully upholstered Eames Wire Chair Low Base, so much so that the Eameses gave her something similar: a prototype of an upholstered molded fiberglass chair on a low wire base, a special configuration that was never offered for sale by Herman Miller. "I like it because it is so small and so comfortable," O'Keeffe wrote in a thank-you note. That "smallest, best chair," as O'Keeffe called it, is the inspiration for the Eames Wire Chair Low Base that's included in the collection.
The snake motif was a personal favorite of Girard's and is also found within Georgia O'Keeffe's home objects. While Girard experimented with his snake table design through sketches and prototypes in the 1950s, this is the first time the table has been produced by Herman Miller. The Girard Snake Table includes a white enamel finish on a steel top printed with a black Girard Snake on a splayed-leg aluminum base.
Herman Miller is providing an exclusive preview of both designs, along with archival photography taken by Alexander Girard and Charles Eames during visits to O'Keeffe's Abiquiú home. Starting at 10am EDT on Tuesday, May 20 during NYCxDESIGN (two hours before the collection is officially launched), the first 100 visitors to Herman Miller's store at 251 Park Avenue South will receive a bandana, inspired by the Girard Snake motif and the distinctly New Mexico spirit of the collection.
Both designs will be available for purchase from Herman Miller online in North America beginning at noon EDT on May 20 and in Japan beginning in late May. Individuals can also sign up to be notified of the release.
The Eames Wire Chair Low Base will be available in a limited quantity of 300, with 250 chairs sold in North America ($1,995 USD) and 50 chairs available in Japan.
The Girard Snake Table will be available in a limited quantity of 100, with 90 tables available in North America ($895 USD) and 10 tables available in Japan.