Patio furniture goes uptown

Sunset, March, 1997 by Ann Bertelsen

The tapered, contoured chairs with their scalloped tops and rounded seats are engineered for comfort. They're also designed to withstand all types of weather. The vinyl-coated mesh seating offers breathing space on hot summer days. And when it rains, the water trickles through the open weave, so the chairs dry off quickly.

The mesh fabric is available in 28 colors, including solids, florals, prints, and stripes. There are 17 choices of frame colors on a spectrum running from off-white to burnished black. The chairs shown above have "weathergreen" frames combined with cane-colored mesh fabric.

Chairs: Athena by Brown Jordan (818/443-8971); $400.