Bistro Chairs - NYTimes.com Claire Pijoulat, left, and Odile Hainaut with an Edgar chair at the Conran Shop. CLAIRE PIJOULAT and Odile Hainaut have lived in New York for a combined 21 years, yet neither is quite used to the sight of people hustling down the street carrying coffee. The women, who are the founders of WantedDesign, a design show and event program that ran concurrently with the recent International Contemporary Furniture Fair, are French. Ms. Pijoulat was raised in Annecy, near Switzerland; Ms. Hainaut in Paris. They enjoy their coffee in cafes. "Part of our education is that you're taught you have to sit to eat and drink," Ms. Hainaut said. Ambulatory consumption of food or liquid "is said to be bad for the health." And even if one's café au lait is chased with an insalubrious cigarette, how much more pleasant to linger with friends at a bistro, flirting and discussing politics. Promised a leisurely beverage at the end of their mission, the women had no objection to strolling around the Flatiron district to look at bistro chairs for sale. But what exactly is a bistro chair? They made a couple of false starts, first encountering an upholstered dining chair then a $1,400 folding chair inspired by an ancient Roman camp stool, which no sane person would leave out in the rain. They paused to nail down a definition. Ms. Pijoulat, a former North American marketing director for Roche Bobois, declared that what makes a bistro chair is "the simplicity of the lines." Whether wood or metal, such chairs are always comfortable. Ideally, they tuck neatly under a table and can be efficiently stored in stacks. The modern archetype, she noted, are the seats produced by the French company Fermob that invaded Times Square after it was turned over to pedestrians. Ms. Hainaut, who owns Gallery R'Pure on East 19th Street, where her show of contemporary designers" interpretations of classic American objects runs through Friday, also emphasized practicality: bistro chairs must be light enough to be slung around, compact enough to squeeze a fifth or sixth body at the table (which is why they are often armless) and strong enough to withstand years of wear. They found just the thing at the Conran Shop in the basement of ABC Carpet & Home: an unfussy bright yellow bentwood chair called Edgar ($150) based on Michael Thonet's classic Model No. 14 chair from 1859. The color was nontraditional, but Ms. Hainaut found "something juicy" about it. Past and present also blended in the showroom of Annick de Lorme, who supplies venues like the Metropolitan Museum cafe with rattan chairs produced by Maison Gatti. Each chair is made to order in France; buyers can forgo traditional ivory, brown and green when selecting colors for the woven seats and backs. Even teal is not frowned upon. For all of their Gallic crispness, Ms. Pijoulat and Ms. Hainaut were willing to bend their rules to accept Leaf into the club. The wiry chair by the Italian company Arper, which they found at SuiteNY, had the botanical look of springtime. One thinks of soft air, clinking glasses and the wafting scent of ... whatever makes the heart beat faster.