Elara Solid Walnut Full Length Mirror

Details

Elara stands on the floor and leans back against the wall, and the first thing the light does is travel down it. The satin surface carries a long highlight along the outer ridge of every curve, and wherever the frame turns inward the tone drops into a deeper red-brown. Cross the room and the highlight moves with you, because almost nothing here is flat.

The outline is one closed ring in the shape of an hourglass: a wide rounded arch across the top, both sides drawing in at about waist height, then the wood opening out again into a broad base that meets the floor. Two full masses with a pinch between them, and the glass follows the same line, so the reflection narrows at the middle too. The two sides answer each other closely enough that the piece reads as symmetrical, though set side by side they are not identical.

One continuous ring of walnut

The band is thick and generous, its cross-section rounded, every edge eased, no sharp corner anywhere. Its width changes as it travels: narrower through the waist and down the left middle, heavier across the top arch, heaviest where the base meets the floor. An even width the whole way around would make the hourglass read as a shape punched out of a board rather than a shape with weight in it.

The grain is visible without being loud, fine lines running the length of the band and bending with it instead of crossing it. No seams, no joint lines, no laminate edge giving itself away at the tight turns. This is solid walnut rather than a veneer pulled around a core, and a curve this deep is where that difference stops being a claim. The glass sits recessed in a channel, set back far enough that you register the depth of the wood before you register yourself.

Who makes it

Mehmet Ali was born in Konya and has spent more than thirty-five years with wood. He shapes each piece himself. Mirrors are a recent chapter for him; the workshop they come out of is a good deal older than they are.

There is no stock room here. Elara is cut once your order arrives, at the height you choose, and the boards it comes from bring their own color and figure, close to these photographs but not a copy.

Nine sizes, height first

• 75 x 33 cm (29 x 13 inch)
• 90 x 40 cm (35 x 16 inch)
• 100 x 45 cm (39 x 17 inch)
• 110 x 48 cm (43 x 19 inch)
• 125 x 56 cm (49 x 22 inch)
• 150 x 67 cm (59 x 26 inch)
• 175 x 78 cm (69 x 30 inch)
• 200 x 90 cm (78 x 35 inch)
• 225 x 101 cm (88 x 39 inch)

The proportion holds at every size, so the smaller ones are the same tall ring reduced, not a squatter version of it. Elara carries more width than the other walnut full length pieces, and that second number is its widest point, down at the base, worth measuring against the floor beside your door. From 150 cm up it gives a standing figure at an easy distance and reads as furniture in an entryway.

Packing, shipping and care

Pieces from this workshop have gone out to around twenty countries so far. Each mirror leaves wrapped in protective material and travels with a tracking number. Keep the walnut dry, and a soft dry cloth is all the satin surface asks for. Caught between two heights? Write to us with the wall and the floor you have in mind and we will tell you which one we would send.

Elara stands with three others in the walnut full length mirrors. If this width is more than the floor can spare, Siena reaches the same 225 cm on 78 cm of wall rather than 101. And if it was the waist you came for and not the span, Vela cinches harder and arrives honey-toned instead of dark.