After scouring the internet for hours-and-hours research Scandinavian modern design, we’ve realized something important.  Much like stereotypical artists need a beret in order to have a painting show at the Salon de Paris and professors need elbow patches on their blazers in order to get tenure, every Scandinavian designer worth his salt posed with a smoking instrument.  Not only did the smoke look artful as it wafted out of the photo’s frame, it gave the designer gravitas.  To wit:

Here’s a young Borge Mogensen flirting with the camera whilst smoking a cigar.  Doesn’t he look artsy yet serious?

From Mogensen's Wikipedia Entry

Here’s the inimitable Hans Wegner, pondering a Papa Bear while having a smoke.  (I know, I know, it’s not actually a Papa Bear, but we like a little alliteration in our lives, okay?)

From the Scandinavian Design Website

But by far the best smoking implement for posing wasn’t a cigar or cigarette, but a pipe.  Even today, you HAVE to pay attention to someone smoking a pipe (well, usually because it’s going to be a hipster with a handle-bar mustache, but you get our drift).  Scandinavian designers were no different — they wanted to been seen as well!

Enter the original hipster, Arne Jakobsen.  I’m not going to lie, I got my latest pair of frames after seeing this photo.  He is such a rockstar.

From Poul Webb's Biography of Jakobsen

There’s only one designer who out-hipsters Arne, and that’s Tapio Wirkkala.  Come on!  Look at Tapio smiling with his eyes, flirting with you, while he smokes his pipe.  This is a man who is confident in the fact he’s a complete bad-ass.

From the Scandinavian Design Website

Wait for part two, where we find even more Scandinavian designers holding their own with their stogies!