Lounge Stars
Little did Rachel Ashwell know in 1989 when she opened a small furniture shop named Shabby Chic on exclusive Montana Avenue that her “look”--machine-washable slipcovered furniture--would ignite one of the strongest furniture trends of the ‘90s.
Not only did her small Santa Monica store become the nucleus of her own home decor empire, it helped spawn a cottage industry of Southern California wholesalers and retailers with a style previously associated with dotty European dowagers.
Call it the right look at the right time. Baby boomers didn’t necessarily want to emulate the formal look of their parents’ homes, complete with upholstered couches and living rooms reserved for special occasions. They seemed to prefer furniture that could handle kids and pets and still pass muster when company came calling.
Ashwell’s rapid rise--she now has more than half a dozen stores and in the last year started selling to department stores--helped put the Southern California furniture industry back on the map.
“Shabby Chic and companies like it helped re-energize the idea of a West Coast style,” said Kimberley Wray, editorial director of High Points, a trade magazine. “They helped jump-start the entire industry and get consumers interested in buying furniture again.”
The Southern California furniture manufacturing industry may never match the heights it achieved during the post-World War II housing boom. Nevertheless, it gives more than 10,000 people steady paychecks, helped in part by such high-end firms as Shabby Chic and its main local competitor in slipcovered furniture, Manhattan Beach-based Quatrine Washable Furniture, founded in 1991 by husband-and-wife team Bill and Gina Ellis.
Not a bad showing for an industry that detractors were convinced less than 10 years ago would be driven out of Southern California by air quality and workers’ compensation regulations, not to mention the proximity of Mexico, with its low manufacturing costs.
Both Shabby Chic and Quatrine have kept the bulk of their furniture and slipcover manufacturing in Southern California even as their nationwide base has expanded. The reason can be summed up in two words: quality control.
“With our fast growth we want to be as on top of it as we can,” Shabby Chic CEO Mari Johnson said. “It’s so easy for pieces and parts to slip through the cracks.”
The issue of hands-on management became such a sticking point for Quatrine that the firm recently jettisoned its local suppliers. Instead, it opened its own 25,000-square-foot factory in Torrance to supply its nationwide chain of stores. Its 50 employees are now producing 400 sofas a month.
Nonetheless, California remains only a small part of the $8-billion furniture business. Specific numbers are hard to come by because most of the leading players are privately held and won’t disclose sales.
“I don’t think all of us makers in Southern California make more than $100 million in sales. We’re still far from the rest of the furniture industry,” said Francisco Pinedo, founder of Cisco Bros., a Los Angeles wholesale manufacturer that employs 125 and supplies such local and national retailers as ABC Carpet, Home and Civilization with slipcovered couches.
Industry analysts agree. “Southern California is a very small, high-end part of the market,” said Wray of High Points magazine. “For those of us in the meat-and-potatoes part of the market, Mitchell Gold is the slipcover king.”
Gold’s firm, Mitchell Gold Co., also founded in 1989, designs and manufactures slipcovered and leather furniture from the more traditional furniture heartland of North Carolina.
Gold, a former furniture buyer for Bloomingdale’s, says he began manufacturing the slipcovered style after seeing the look at a designer showcase.
“I thought it was nifty, but at our first showing we didn’t sell to any customers. But I really believed in it and tried again,” he said.
Gold’s Taylorsville, N.C.-based company grossed more than $30 million in 1997, selling to such industry giants as Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel. “I never expected this business to be this big,” Gold said.
Pinedo said that when he founded his firm in 1989, he intended to make traditional upholstered couches.
Instead, he moved with the market, turning his factory into a one-stop source for retailers such as Shabby Chic and Quatrine that were looking for manufacturers capable of producing both the piece of furniture and its slipcover.
The trend’s success has bred a fierce rivalry among the Southern California slipcover mavens.
For years, Shabby Chic offered the most expensive slipcovered furniture in the business--until this year, when it debuted its lower-cost Shabby Chic Studio line.
Said Johnson: “When I came in 1996, I asked Rachel, ‘Why are you letting other firms knock you off? You should knock yourself off.’ ” (Since Ashwell brought in CEO Johnson, insiders say, the firm’s business has more than doubled.)
Despite the competition, Shabby Chic, Quatrine and others benefit from the seemingly united image they present to their consumers--the high-fashion, high-living lifestyle associated with Los Angeles.
Both Shabby Chic and Quatrine have moved aggressively to place their products on such TV shows as “Melrose Place,” “Mad About You” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Ashwell also trumpeted her style in a glossy coffee-table book published in 1996.
The Southern California slipcover style is unique in some respects. Los Angeles-based retailers and manufacturers favor an oversized, wrinkly look, while mainstream manufacturers such as Gold prefer a tailored approach. This hasn’t deterred the California firms, however, from going national.
Today Shabby Chic sells fabrics, sheets and several lines of furniture, ranging from mass-produced items to made-to-order sofas that can cost more than $5,000. The lines are carried by Bloomingdale’s and other department stores.
A new Shabby Chic Fabric shop on Montana Avenue--next door to the original store--also offers slipcovers for furniture not manufactured by the company.
Quatrine, meanwhile, has avoided the wholesale route, instead maintaining a nationwide chain of stores in several states. When its original Manhattan Beach store opened in 1991, Quatrine was a custom-design-based business.
But the Ellises quickly decided to pare their line to the most popular furniture frames and slipcovers, creating a hybrid product that’s part mass-produced and part made-to-order.
The gamble paid off. The couple opened a second store in Michigan in 1993 and were able to finance three new store openings the following year.
The Ellises say the slipcovered look has potential to grow, as buyers nationwide discover a style once reserved for the well-to-do.
“It’s like the 1970s” when Calvin Klein brought high-end clothing to the upper-middle class, Gina Ellis said. These new customers “weren’t interested in Sears, but they couldn’t afford couture. The home industry has followed a similar pattern.”
