The Mars - Genuine Leather Recliner Swivel Chair & Matching Footstool in Chocolate

I bought this in July 2021 for £599. It came quickly and was easy to assemble. I was pleased with it, but the leather seemed to be very thin. I'm 15 stone and disabled, I use the chair every evening to watch TV.Now in April 2023 it is a disaster zone. The 'leather' seems to be flaking loose bits of it's surface in several places. I have had leather furniture for 50 years and I never seen this. I have several items that have been used constantly for a long time with the leather polished by use but none have flaked, it appears the be a rough unfinished thin leather material coated with a sprayed on surface. The spring in the seat then broke making the chair unusable.Complaining is a waste of time, they have finally offered to send a new spring in late May, they are out of stock now so it is clearly a common problem.After a lot of 'discussion' Morris Living replaced the arms and seat cushion of the chair. Homeserve fitted it and left the old parts with us to dispose of. I cut a patch of the 'genuine leather top surface of one of the arms to test and find out if it is actually 'genuine leather'. The pattern on the leather is very consistent over the whole chair, it looks man-made rather than being part of an animal skin.I expected the reverse of the leather to smell like leather but it appears to be a fibrous backing similar to the reverse of leather but there is no smell at all. I dripped water onto the surface, it would be slowly absorbed by genuine leather but it sat on the surface.I cut a strip off the sample and tried to stretch it, genuine leather cannot be easily stretched, but this stretched noticeably without a massive force being applied.The critical test is burning a sample; genuine leather should char and smoke but not burn. I held the corner of the sample over a single match for a few seconds. The dark brown surface immediately burn off leaving a beige base material exposed, this shrank back for the flame and then burst into flames. There was a strong smell of burning plastic! You can see the result in the third image, the square corner has melted and burned to a curved shape after just a few seconds!This material is not 'genuine leather' it is probably bonded leather, leather fragments reconstituted into a layer bonded together by a plastic adhesive material and then coated with a textured surface to appear to be 'genuine leather.Be warned, this company supplies items with 'Genuine leather' that is really a plastic based material that fails after a short time. A total RIP OFF!

This is a very comfortable well-made chair which I have had for about a year now. My wife, who has a 'Stressless' chair, agrees that it is more comfortable than hers. The only niggle, and the reason for 4 stars' is that it seems to take a bit of effort to push it back into the 'recline' position. I recently had occasion to ask for customer service and the suppliers could not have been more helpful and sorted my issue very quickly.

What I like is the style, quality of the leather and the price of course. As it only arrived a couple of hours ago I cannot testify as to its durability, but it seems substantial although some of the finishing is a tad off. We looked at and tried our quite a few, some costing more than 4 times the price of this one, and to be honest I couldn't see how the price difference was arrived at, I suppose only time will tell. And as for comfort, I only gave 4 stars because it has yet to be broken in. To summarise, a good product at a wonderful price

This is a very comfortable and very sturdy chair. I particularly like the way that a little body pressure changes the recliner position and it doesn't then try and force itself back to the previous position. One small issue - we have shiny wooden floors and have had to fasten scratch-proof tape under the chair to stop it marking the floor.

The product did take a while to arrive, but was delivered professionally. The product is well made, not as good as its Scandinavian competitor but half the price. Has proved to be a favourite seat for family visitors.