The Warrior Chair is a piece designed for champions and warriors to rest in (when given special permission) at the Warstic headquarters. Created as Jack White’s first design contribution to the showroom of the Dallas company Warstic (which he co-owns with founder Ben Jenkins and Golden Glove second baseman Ian Kinsler), the chair itself is one-of-a-kind and contains many unique elements, some never previously created in a piece of furniture.

Jack was drawn to this specific 1930 club chair because the wood frame at the front of the chair depicted both a giant “W” (for Warstic) and a sideways numeral 3. These factors provided more than enough inspiration for him to embark on this involved, detail-heavy furniture project for the new Warstic HQ.

First the club chair was stripped down to its bare wooden frame, its loose joints reglued and the veneer show pieces sanded down and stained jet black. The springs were in great shape and were 4-way tied (as had been done originally). A special red burlap was used to cover the springs to represent the warriors’ blood inside of the living piece. Rubberized horsehair and cotton padding were used for all of the foundation.

The deck of the seat has a white fabric square machine-sewn in by Jack as a new addition to the chair, representing a “base” as in a baseball diamond and also the four way elements of the game of baseball. Most sports contain a “home” or a “goal” or an “endzone” and could all be represented by this square whilst subsequently the trademark two Warstic stripes exiting the black space of the deck in four directions.

The Warrior Chair is quite possibly the first chair in history that emits a customized scent when a person sits on its cushion.  The Warrior Scent is a blend of different smells both natural and unnatural that center around the sport of baseball, where Warstic got its start. Leather, wood, dirt, glove oil, burnt umbers and other various secret scents were sewn into mesh bags with wood baseball bat shavings. These bags were hung inside the arms and back of the chair. When the main cushion and deck are depressed, openings to the interior of these cavities are allowed to “breathe” enabling the Warrior Scent to diffuse. All of this imbues the chair with a sense of ephemerality as there is no telling how long the scent will last.

For the final fabric, White employed two gorgeous gold and black mohair velvets. The trademark two stripes of the Warstic brand are present as skinny stripes in three directions and two large stripes are represented in the channeled inside back. Memory foam was used on the sewn cushion and a blank baseball bat billet was sawn in half and finished in jet black stain with both halves placed at the base of the chair. There are many more secrets inside this piece that might only be discovered by another upholsterer decades from now…if ever.

The Warrior Chair is viewable to the public at the Warstic HQ and showroom in Dallas, Texas.