Artiva USA Milano Recliner Review 2024

Do you suffer from chronic back pain? If so, you’re not alone. Much of it comes down to poor posture, which is, at least in part, a function of the furniture you own. Most of it is poorly designed, and sitting in it will only make your aching back hurt worse.

Fortunately, there’s an answer for that! In recent years, we’ve seen a growing collection of ergonomically designed living room furniture introduced by a variety of manufacturers, and the Artiva USA Milano Recliner is one of these.

If you’re looking for a low-cost ergonomic recliner and want to “buy American,” this is a solid choice. However, we’ll quickly say that it’s not perfect and is not for everyone. Don’t worry; in the following sections, we’ll cover everything this little recliner is and isn’t, so you’ll have all the information you need to decide if it’s the right one for you.

Ready? Let’s get right to it!

Key Features of the Milano Recliner by Artiva USA

The first thing you’ll notice about the Milano Leather Recliner Chair is that it’s…gorgeous. Even though it only received an “Honorable Mention” in our recent roundup review of the best lounge recliner for posture, we’d judge it as the most beautiful chair.

Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you may disagree, but yeah. Even if you think one of the other models mentioned in the roundup review is better looking, there’s no denying that the Milano is eye-catching and then some.

Unfortunately, its innate beauty and exquisite design work against it. Many American households have a fairly casual, informal décor scheme. If that describes your home, the Milano might look out of place with its modern European styling, sleek lines, and rich Mahogany finish with chrome accents.

Its good looks work against it in another way, too. For all its beauty, the manufacturers used low-quality materials in the construction: cheap wood veneer and bonded leather rather than genuine grain leather. 

This is always an agonizing tradeoff. Using high-quality materials would raise the price, and Milano is aimed at the value segment of the market, so we can’t fault them for their choice of materials. On the other hand, making such a handsome piece of furniture with lower-quality materials seems almost anachronistic to us, but your mileage may vary there.

The chair measures 32.3″ x 29.5″ x 42.5″ and weighs sixty pounds. It is available in Black, brown, or latte. We’ll discuss quality in a later section.

Adjustability & Comfort

The chair and its accompanying ottoman are well-padded, with foam, which is reasonably comfortable but not exquisitely so. Still, it’s adequate for several hours of TV watching in the evening, although it falls short of being a good napping chair.

Its recline function is rudimentary. It’s not lever-activated, so you grip the chair arms and push back to recline. That’s all there is to it. Simple and functional.

As with many lower-priced chairs, this one swivels on its base like an office chair, but while some of the other low-priced loungers we’ve reviewed (especially the one offered by Flash Furniture, the BT-7862-BK-GG) would be easy to see in the role of an office chair, this one doesn’t fit that bill. It’s a piece of living room furniture.

Storage & Extras

This will be a short section, as with the rest of our value-priced furniture reviews in this section. Artiva USA’s Milano Leather Recliner Chair has no built-in storage or extras. Unfortunately, given its modest price, we weren’t expecting any.

Some Assembly Required

Okay, it’s time to bring the quality issue up again, and we’ll freely admit this is a disappointment.

The Milano comes in a big box and is unassembled. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Plenty of decent pieces of furniture require at least some assembly, but most of the ones we’ve seen have better instructions than the Milano.

The instructions do not include words but images, and unfortunately, some of the images are somewhat cryptic and hard to decipher. While putting the chair together by yourself is possible, we recommend getting a helper. Between the two of you, it’ll go faster (thirty minutes or so), and you’ll be able to wrestle the pieces into position more easily.

You’ll be glad for the help, too, because, unfortunately, Artiva has some quality control problems. Nothing will cause you to have to send the chair back. But pieces and parts don’t line up quite how they should, meaning the Milano requires more brute force and elbow grease to put together than the other low-priced ergonomic loungers we’ve reviewed.

If there’s a silver lining in this part of the equation, Artiva has solid customer service and support. If you run into problems or if something is missing or broken, getting a replacement is easy, and the staff is friendly and helpful.

Pros & Cons of Artiva USA Milano Leather Recliner Chair

We like Artiva USA’s Milano Recliner (and we think you will, too!), but we wanted to love it, and we don’t. It’s a good chair—a beautiful chair and reasonably comfortable, too. It’s a solid chair for what it is—a value-priced, fairly comfortable, basic ergonomic recliner.

Unfortunately, it has two weaknesses that may cause people to pass on it. The first is the quality of the materials used in construction. Thin wood veneer and bonded leather can be dressed up to look nice, but they don’t hold up well in the long run. This chair is going to show its age quickly.

That leads to the second problem. It’s just not very durable because cheap materials were used in its construction. Even if you’re super careful with it, you’ll be lucky if this chair lasts five years. Even if it does, it will start showing its age well before then.  

Now, you could argue (convincingly) that Milano’s price is not such a bad thing, and you’d have a fair point. On the other hand, given how striking the design is, building the chair with inferior materials seems almost a waste.

Final Thoughts on Artiva USA Milano Recliner Review

The Milano is an ergonomic lounger that wants to be great, but just… isn’t.

It’s beautiful, fairly comfortable, and reasonably priced, but it’s also made of low-end materials that will not last for years.

Even so, we do recommend it for the following people:

This is a fabulous chair if that describes you and what you want. The less those bullet points sound like you, the less enthused you will be about the Artiva USA Milano Recliner. Had this model been built with top-quality materials, it would have probably come close to earning a perfect five-star rating from us.

Recommended Reading

Oslo Collection Mac Motion Recliner Review

Our analysis focuses on the Oslo Collection Mac Motion Recliner, a pricey yet beautifully ergonomic chair for back pain relief.

Human Touch Perfect Chair PC-500 Review

We explored the Human Touch Perfect Chair PC-500, an elegant chair with exceptional construction and ergonomic features.

Official Manufacturer Support

References & Resources

• Artiva USA, Official Brand Website.
• Are Recliners Bad for Your Back?, Furniture Academy.
• Is Your Chair Killing You? The Consequences of Comfort, Daily Beast.
• How Reclining Chairs and Sofas Can Improve Your Health, Get Holistic Health.