What better time than the height of summer to discover this most curvalicious vintage patio furniture: Two Fibrella fiberglass lounges and a five-piece table and chairs set, which I bumped into for sale right now on Facebook Marketplace. I’ve never seen vintage Fibrella before, and goodness, are they goodness. I also searched the history of these Fibrella sets. Info is a bit sparse, but I found some cookie crumbs along the trail. Thanks to seller Mark for giving me permission to show these photos. The set is located in eastern Connecticut. Also, have you checked out Facebook Marketplace? I’m really into it!
Let’s take a look at this lovely Fibrella set — individually the pieces are quite desirable, and as a set, I’d guess, even more so >>
These Fibrella lounge chairs are particularly wonderful. Using that unique zig zag molded base design, they can be moved in two positions — gentle let’s check out everyone at the pool recline and full-on tan time recline. Note, I spotted other designs of these lounge chairs online, including a flat-paddle design and variations with coated metal legs. Colors seem to have been: yellow, light blue, aqua, and pink.
Friday update: When I posted this story on our Facebook page (109,000 followers — join us there, too!), Amber posted the photo above and said she had just bought this set of four turquoise Fibrella lounge chairs the day before. Fabulous! Thanks, Amber, for permission to show your photo. Summertime, and livin’ the dream!
Back to Mark’s set for sale…. Googling around, it seems Fibrella lounge chairs come up for sale with some decent frequency. The patio table and chairs that come with Mark’s set appear to be harder to find. As you can see, they were color coordinated and equally groovy in their design aesthetic. I bet there was a matching umbrella too.
In his listing Mark says:
BARN FIND …Very rare 50s 7 piece “Fibrella” fiberglass patio / pool / porch / deck set in very good original condition. Two contour loungers, four dining chairs and one table. There are some chips, scratches and paint drips on a few pieces. Each piece has the original tag in place. $3000 for the two lounge chairs and 1500 for the four chairs and table…..$4000 for everything.
Actually, I believe these are late 60s or even early 70s… continue on. Yikes! What a great barn find!
Fibrella history — fiberglass furniture launched in 1961 or 1962
Mark shows this label in his listing indicating the pieces were sold by Le Barron Pool & Patio Furniture of Irwindale, California. Indeed, in many photos I spotted online, Le Barron seems to have been a major retailer of this furniture line.
That said, I also found this molded mark indicating that Fibrella patio furniture was manufactured by Aquaslide ”n’ Dive of El Monte, Calif. This company also made fiberglass patio slides. It makes sense that they would also have a line of patio furniture.
This April 1962 advertisement indicates that Fibrella launched its fiberglass patio furniture in 1961 or 1962. I could not find any historical record of the curvy Fibrella lounge chairs that Mark is selling, but I suspect the curvy lounge chairs and sets came later in the 1960s. (Note, you may need to have a subscription to see the ad; I have a subscription now to do research like this.)
There were many more designs of patio furniture available. For example, right now for sale in Las Vegas I see these low slung lounge chairs. Same chairs here, matchy matchy colors, on chairish.
- One more bit of link love: See the listing for this Fibrella set on Facebook Markeplace. And again, thank you, Mark!
Hi Katie, it sounds like you have quite the collection! I don’t have the expertise to advise you about the best strategy for selling. Note, no buying/selling in comment threads on the blog or it becomes chaos.
Good luck!