A Slinky Number for . . . Your Home?
What’s in a name? If it’s a fashion designer’s, can it help sell couches and chairs?
Bill Blass is the latest designer to test that theory, with his new furniture line hitting the stores this spring, joining those of Laura Ashley, Versace and others. If his furniture is as successful as that by Ralph Lauren and Alexander Julian, he will have helped revive sales in the sluggish furniture industry and perhaps encourage even more fashion designers to follow suit.
After hitting a peak of annual growth of about 10% in the 1980s, furniture sales hit a low point in 1990 and 1991, according to the American Furniture Manufacturers Assn. in High Point, N.C. The association expects 4.2% growth this year.
“Retailers were very slow to project the reality that Generation Xers know what they want,” says Ken Fonville, president of Pennsylvania House, a furniture manufacturer in business for 110 years. “They are going to inherit $10 trillion in money alone, as well as antiques from their parents. They want furniture that fits in with different antiques and collectibles. They also want to buy established names.”
Nancy High, director of marketing and communications for the furniture manufacturers association, agrees.
“People are not buying whole suites of furniture for each room, as they used to. Now they purchase a piece at a time and don’t want everything to match. What fashion designers bring with them is brand recognition. Fashion is a natural in home design.”
Fashion designers also bring with them their own style, something furniture warehouses decidedly lack. Add to that, designers are associated with lifestyles that, at least on glossy paper, look very appealing.
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The trend is not exactly new: French fashion houses like Pierre Cardin in the 1970s created linen and bathroom accessories. American Halston designed sheets and towels, while Christian Dior seemed to have his name on everything for the house and the body. By lending their names to licensing agents all too readily, some overdid the use of a name brand.
Still, designers know it’s their perceived style that sells. To that end, their homes appear over and over in shelter magazines. We know about Donna Karan’s predominantly white house on Long Island, Yves Saint Laurent’s brilliantly colored Moroccan palace and Georgio Armani’s minimalist beige Milan apartment. There’s even a fat new coffee table book, “The Fashion House, Inside the Homes of Leading Designers” by Lisa Lovatt-Smith (Conran Octopus), with designer clothes pictured in designer houses. Lovatt-Smith writes about these houses as “different elements of visual life being unified by one prevalent aesthetic.”
This “prevalent aesthetic” was first seen in all its marketing glory in 1986, when Ralph Lauren restored the old Rhinelander mansion on Madison Avenue in New York City into his flagship store. Spending millions to furnish it more like a house than a store, he illustrated how you could live the life of the Lauren-inspired gentry by buying everything from sheets to couches in one place.
The rewards of this marketing strategy have been great, and Lauren celebrates 15 years of furniture design this fall with a new line called Southport, inspired by a “Woody” station wagon.
Newer in this market is Julian’s furniture line for North Carolina-based Universal that debuted in 1994 with a 150-piece collection.
“That line of furniture broke a 20-year record in sales and acceptance” at the International Homes Furnishings Market in High Point, Julian says. “My goal is to have people talk about furniture the way they talk about fashions. To my mind, they’re similar, only there are fewer sizes in furniture.’
Julian, who sees Lauren as his mentor, refers to his design philosophy as pragmatic and hands-on, whereas Lauren himself is now more concerned about big concepts.
“Some of my furniture, like my biggest seller, a glass-fronted haberdasher’s chest, came out of my looking at store fixtures. They’re designed for storage as well as display,” Julian says. “One thing I hate is legislating taste by income, so I made my furniture to have good quality and design and be affordable. If people like the modern-traditional aspects of my clothes, they will like the furniture also.”
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He’s obviously doing something right, since Julian’s home-design division grossed more than $100 million last year.
“Their style and finishes are excellent,” says Dana Eggerts, an interior decorator and president of Creative Design Consultants in Costa Mesa. “You get great quality for the price. We use the furniture in our model homes as much as we possibly can.”
Julian’s furniture can be found on the Internet as well as at Mark Friedman’s in Santa Monica, among other outlets.
If these lines have anything in common, it is the accent on traditional design. Lauren’s furniture fancifully mimics that of British royalty, while Julian’s is as classic and colorful as his clothing. The furniture easily blends into almost any decor.
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One person taking chances is Comme des Garcon’s Rei Kawakubo, who introduced her furniture line in 1983. The Tokyo-based designer, who once said she designed in three shades of black, creates minimalist furniture made from Japanese linden, aluminum, steel and leather. It’s not exactly comfortable looking, but then again neither is Comme des Garcon’s clothing. Both, however, are prized for innovation and style. Her furniture must be special-ordered.
At Hermes, the furniture is sleekly contemporary and made from fine woods and leather that echo its equestrian past. It, like Kawakubo’s, is more innovative and of the 20th, rather than the 18th or 19th, centuries.
Laura Ashley Home stores show some signature couches, love seats and chairs, while furniture from Versace’s collection can be found in its boutiques and special-ordered. Collections by Romeo Gigli, introduced at the 1997 Salone del Mobile in Milan, and Dior are available in Europe.
Even dead designers can get in the act, with the French Jacques Grange basing a plush suede sofa on the one in Coco Chanel’s apartment on the Rue Cambon in Paris.
The latest designer to enter the arena is Bill Blass. Introduced at the Home Furnishings Market in the fall, his tables, chairs and beds costing around $3,000 each were mainly inspired by pieces from his own homes: his Manhattan apartment on Sutton Place and a 1779 country house in Connecticut.
His 50-piece, whole-house collection with Pennsylvania House is conservative, using 18th and 19th century furniture as inspiration. Pieces are as ornate as a highly carved Belgian secretary that’s already back-ordered, to a simple chair and campaign chest.
“This is the first time we’ve manufactured furniture that a fashion designer created,” Fonville says. “He has designed some of the pieces himself, and some are reproductions of pieces he owns. He is very hands-on about the collection and visits the factory to see how things are being made.”
Blass’ furniture can be seen at California Furniture Gallery in Canoga Park and Naurell in West Hollywood.
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Even generic designer names like Nautica, with a 150-piece collection, and Eddie Bauer, with a back-to-nature collection in pine, hope customers will like the furniture as much as the clothes. Maybe customer identification with these designers will spur interest in furniture buying in the $53.9-billion-a-year furniture industry to rival the success of Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel and Pier 1, three fast-growing furniture retailers.
Designers who are thinking about hooking up with furniture manufacturers include Karan, Liz Claiborne and, yes, Tommy Hilfiger. They are necessarily wary because there have been notable failures in this field, with both J.G. Hook and Emilio Pucci never finding a large market for their furniture.
What’s next--baggy ottomans? Racing-stripe armoires?
