“No one bends metal like Brown Jordan.” When Julie Daniel, senior vice-president of marketing and ecommerce at Brown Jordan, heard this saying, she wasn’t sure what it meant. “Then I went to one of our factories,” she says, “and I actually watched how we produce our furniture. We custom make all our products, and we literally take one long piece of aluminum and use multiple machines to heat it and bend it to its desired shape. Our furniture is defined by our curves. It’s art you can sit on.”

Julie has learned a lot about Brown Jordan’s legacy since she started with the company nearly five years ago. When she discovered the Smithsonian Gardens had acquired the Brown Jordan Day Lily chair as part of its Horticultural Artifacts Collection, she knew she was working for a company with a rich history.

“Brown Jordan has been known for its innovation for years,” Julie says. “We were the first to treat wrought iron furniture with a rust-resistant finish to minimize maintenance, for example. Our original Walter Lamb chair is celebrating a major anniversary this year. This is why craftsmanship and innovation are core principles of our brand.”