This post contains a slight spoiler for the movie The Meg.
Martha Stewart’s personal Instagram page is a treasure trove of content, some of which which seems suspiciously catered to my interests. On it, she shares beautiful content like her bedazzled, political, footwear and her mysterious Halloween costumes — but this week, she may have shared her most important, Martha Stewart-y, post to date: It was a throwback photo to this chair that was featured on her show years ago, after jail but before her Snoop Dogg television show. The chair, is simply put, the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. It was Kaws before Kaws. It was Jaws.
Martha’s Instagram caption about the chair obviously didn’t provide me with enough answers to my hundreds of questions. Why was this made? Who made it? Did this arise from an earnest love of sharks? What does it feel like to sit on the Sharkey chair? I needed to know more.
Upon investigation, I discovered that the chair was featured on a how-to segment on the Martha Stewart Show, part of Martha’s summer finds. Martha and her guest, designer Kelly Behun — who was named one of Architectural Digest’s 2019 100 designers — instructed viewers in the step-by-step process of creating their own stuffed-animal chair. But first, answering a few of my pressing questions, Martha gave a little bit of context about how she came across the chair: at one of Kelly Behun’s parties.
“I was out at this party in the Hamptons, and imagine my delight when I found out that the hostess had made this amazing shark chair herself,” Martha explained. “I just smiled when I came upon it in her house!”
Prior to watching the segment, if you’d asked me where Martha might have seen such a creation, something that looks like a plushier version of the end of The Meg, I would never have guessed the Hamptons, the place where wealthy people go to do coke by the sea. But alas! (Behun did explain that the chair was not really intended for adults; it was actually for her kids, which does make a bit more sense.)
Martha pointed out that the chair was actually quite cozy, which means that at one point, she likely sat in it, though this unfortunately was not shown. It seems unfair that there’s not extensive footage of her sitting and talking in the chair, discussing her various trips to the ocean, and ruminating on the different types of sharks.
The most important thing to know about the chair is that we can each make our own, if we are so inclined. Good news: Not only is there the instructional segment with Martha and Kelly Behun, but Martha’s blog also has a post on how to make one of your own. You can obviously choose to use other stuffed animals, not just sharks, but I don’t know why you would do that.
It is still unclear if Martha’s love for the chair comes from her love of sharks or her love of novelty furniture — but I can say with absolute certainty this is the greatest, weirdest chair to exist, and I want twenty of them.