ON SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA : Building Legs for Industry : Furniture Makers Such as Cisco Bros. Are Creating a Well-Padded Fashion Niche
You could say, “Only in Los Angeles.” Francisco Pinedo, an upholsterer by trade, decided in 1989 to take his and his wife’s savings of $10,000, buy equipment, lease a small factory and go into the furniture business, one of the city’s oldest and largest industries.
His timing was courageous, if nothing else. In 1989, furniture seemed a local industry headed for extinction, bedeviled by recession, foreign competition, air quality, workers compensation regulations and the lure of Mexico as a cheap-labor production site.
Some of those threats proved false, especially the lure of Mexico, but recession and foreign competition are undeniable: The number of furniture makers in Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties has declined to about 440, employing fewer than 14,000 people, from a peak of more than 500 companies employing 26,000.
Yet Cisco Bros., the company Pinedo founded with three brothers, is thriving. It will do $5 million in sales this year at its 35,000-square-foot plant in Vernon, where it has 70 employees, and hopes to expand next year to a larger plant in South Gate.
What’s Pinedo’s secret? In a word: fashion. Cisco Bros. specializes in leather and washable, slip-covered furniture, a recent development in which original fabrics and designs in removable slip covers mix a touch of artistry with practicality in sofas and chairs.
This kind of furniture, sold through stores like Civilization, in Venice Boulevard’s furniture center, has started a national trend. Customers nationwide know the new California designs from television and movies, where the furniture makes regular appearances. Civilization furnished the MTV show “The Real World.”
It’s a pricey trend, with sofas selling for $2,800 to $5,000, the prices geared to be below the cost of custom work by interior decorators.
“It’s furniture for professional women, who for years have had quality and style at acceptable prices in their clothing and now want similar style and design in furnishing their homes,” says Gina Ellis, owner of the Quatrine stores in Manhattan Beach and Birmingham, Mich., which specialize in washable slip-covered furniture.
The business is growing. Pinedo is looking for outlets in San Francisco, Dallas and other cities here and abroad. Quatrine is opening stores in Dallas and Chicago. And Richard (Ricky) Green, the 32-year-old owner of Civilization--which displays the work of more than 50 local artisans--is talking to business partners and Los Angeles officials about creating an art and design center devoted to furniture.
“A furniture design center is an idea that takes advantage of the abundance of artistic and design talent in Los Angeles and Southern California,” says Steven Herman, who wrote a thesis on the local furniture industry at UCLA’s School of Urban Planning and now works for Rebuild L.A. “Such a center could be key to an industry revival.”
Possibly, but a question arises because fashion is a niche business, with sales in the tens of millions in an industry that ships almost $2 billion in furniture from plants in Southern California and double that amount from furniture factories in North Carolina.
The local industry grew up, with the post-World War II boom, in a sheltered environment because freight charges from North Carolina made Eastern furniture uncompetitive. Then economics and geography shifted. The basic furniture you buy at Levitz and other warehouse showrooms began to come from Taiwan, where low-priced manufacturers shipped furniture kits for assembly in the United States.
That’s a tough business, says Wayne Tong, chief financial officer of Master Design Furniture, an Ontario firm that assembles $60 million a year worth of dining room sets. Many furniture stores have gone out of business, so price competition among the remaining outlets is severe, says Tong.
Wages and jobs at manufacturers competing in basic furniture markets are under pressure--which explains why employment has fallen faster than the number of companies in the business.
Yet all of that is an argument in favor of Southern California looking to fashion for its furniture future. Simply put, fashion pays better wages. Most jobs in a basic furniture plant pay $6 an hour or so, “although a skilled upholsterer will make $12 an hour,” says Sheldon Samuels, owner of the Chair Factory, a $2-million-in-sales Los Angeles company that makes tables and chairs for decorators and designers.
Cisco Bros. pays skilled cutters for its fabrics $11 to $13 an hour, Pinedo says. And it also needs superior seamstresses who know about sewing leather and can make $9 an hour.
“The furniture makers here should get together to promote our styles,” Pinedo says. “I’ve been to shows in High Point (N.C., the furniture industry’s Mecca). They want Los Angeles style.”
Pinedo, a son of Mexican immigrants who grew up in South-Central Los Angeles, was 27 when he left the local plant of Virginia-based Bassett Furniture Industries to start on his own. His 10 years at Bassett had built up $10,000 in savings, he says, “and taught me how to order fabrics, taught me pricing.” He had always kept an upholstery shop, repairing chairs for neighbors.
But starting a bigger business was hard. He had no credit, so each time he ordered fabric he had to send a cashier’s check before the mill would ship to him. But three years ago, he called on Civilization, and owner Green gave him an order for 20 pieces.
With that volume, Pinedo could get fabric on 30-day credit from the mills, and Cisco Bros. was on its way--although local banks are still unwilling to lend on orders and support local entrepreneurs.
Ultimately, the success of any industry--and any city--depends on its entrepreneurs. As ever, Pinedo talks over the business with wife Alba, who had the first of three daughters at about the time Cisco Bros. was launched. “She said to take the savings and take the chance,” Pinedo says.
On the Wane
Foreign competition, environmental strictures and a prolonged recession have reduced the number of household furniture manufacturers in Los Angeles County by 14.5% from 1981-92 and cut industry employment by 47.5% over the same period.
MANUFACTURERS: ‘92, 438
EMPLOYEES: ‘92, 13.74
* Notes: Figures for 1993 not available until May, 1995. Orange County figures are not available except for 1992 when there were 82 manufacturers employing 2,710 people. Household furniture statistics do not include office, industrial or commerical furniture.
* Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Steven Herman, UCLA master’s thesis “The Los Angeles Household Furniture Industry: An Alternative View Based on an Industrial District Analysis.”
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