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Trumped Up Furniture

Trump the latest celebrity to expand into furniture business
Industry has few consumer recognizable brands
BY IEVA M. AUGSTUMS
Monday, April 09, 2007

THOMASVILLE, N.C. | With the theme song from his reality television show blaring in the background, Donald Trump strode into a showroom at the world’s biggest furniture trade show and started to brag about, of all things, his couch.

“Trump Home furniture offers consumers a tangible way to experience the luxurious Trump lifestyle for themselves … even if they can’t afford millions for one of my properties,” Trump said. “Now the public can not only wear my clothes, they can sit on my couch.”

Should Trump’s over-the-top bombast not suit your personal style, how about a couch from model Cindy Crawford? Or a couple of chairs from teen stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen? Such boldface names are all over furniture today, and some touted at this spring’s International Home Furnishings Market in High Point are among the increasing number whose fame isn’t rooted in the business of hearth and home.
The furniture industry has very few consumer recognizable brands — less than 10 by most measures — so manufacturers bring celebrities on board to help draw consumers into stores, said Jerry Epperson, a furniture industry analyst with Richmond, Va.-based investment banker Mann, Armistead and Epperson.

“America appears constantly fascinated by the famous, often without regard to their talent or ability,” Epperson said. “A celebrity identity gives consumers some comfort and reinforcement that someone else has chosen the item, too.”

Such famous-name furniture isn’t new — think Martha Stewart. Other celebrity lines that have sold well include that of American Realist painter Bob Timberlake and a collection named for fashion designer Liz Claiborne, both sold by Lexington Home Brands.

But several of the more recent celebrities to enter the market are like Trump, who bring their name to the business as much as a designer’s touch or artisan’s eye. They include Crawford, whose furniture collection debuted in late 2005, and the Olsen twins, whose second collection will hit stores this spring.

Epperson said for celebrities, launching a furniture line associates their name with fashion and the home — and brings in some profits. Among the first to enter the market was former Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit model Kathy Ireland, who in 1998 added furniture to the apparel, accessories and jewelry now sold by Kathy Ireland Worldwide.

In 2003, the last year from which figures from her privately held company are available, her collections with Standard Furniture brought in $500 million — at the time half of her company’s annual sales.

“We started with socks in 1993, and people laughed at us,” Ireland said. “I’m humbled by our brand’s success.”

Such well-known celebrity names attract consumers who generally don’t spend a lot of time shopping for furnishings, said Mary Frye, president of the Home Furnishings International Association, a Dallas-based trade group.

“It’s like being a political candidate,” Frye said. “Sometimes they get elected not because you side with them on their political issues, but because you recognize the name.”

This spring, Trump was the rookie at the furniture market in High Point, about 90 miles west of Raleigh, where 70,000 people gather every six months to do business in more than 12 million square feet of showroom space. He met in nearby Thomasville with more than 350 buyers, all eager to hear him talk about his venture into the furniture business.

“The thing I really do know is furniture,” Trump said. “I buy it for all my properties and will buy this furniture for my future properties.”

Trump’s name famously adorns his skyscrapers and hotels, as well as vodka, menswear and accessories. But the mogul said he’s done more that just lend that name to Lexington Home Brands — he opened up his personal homes and luxury properties to designers from the privately held company so they could be inspired by his larger-than-life style.

“I can’t put my name on something I don’t love,” he said.

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Painted Furniture

YOUR CALL: Hand-Painting Furniture Invites Personal Touch
By Rosemary Sadez Friedmann
Saturday, April 7, 2007

Hand-painted furniture has always been considered special in one way or another, primarily because it adds sophistication in a way that is unique.

The furniture can be whimsically treated simply with color or formally painted to create a particular look. The scenery can span the globe from tulips to chinoiserie. Antique pieces are recognized by the hand-painting techniques used in a particular era; contemporary painted furnishings can be a faux finish of some sort.

Understanding some of the terminology might help clear up some questions. Here is your decorating vocabulary lesson for the day:

SBlt Chinoiserie (pronounced shin-WAH-zeree): This is the name given to the adaptations of Asian lacquer techniques and the motifs associated with them. The scenes are usually of florals, and often have an Asian motif that can include human figures and/or Asian landscapes. Obviously, furniture painted in this motif fits in well with the Asian look, but can also be a good accent piece on its own.

• Colorwashing: This is a glazing technique that involves a slow-drying process with a transparent topcoat on a colored base. As the piece is being painted, the top layer of paint is wiped off slightly every so often during the process to give it that “washed” look. Color-washed furniture looks good in casual rooms.

• Faux: The word means false or fake. The resulting painted work resembles things such as marble, stone, bamboo and the like. Depending on the quality of the faux finish and the finished look, this furniture can take center stage in a formal living room.

• Incising: This is sometimes confused with faux painting and also with colorwashing. It is actually a decorative finish that is accomplished while the still wet topcoat of paint is removed with the end of a brush to reveal the base coat. It is a very interesting look when completed, particularly if the base coat and topcoat colors are well coordinated.

• Trompe l’oeil: This translates to “deceive the eye.” This type of painting creates a realistic illusion of a scene through the use of perspective drawing and shadows, giving the flat surface an illusion of dimension.

• Patina: Patina is a natural aging finish, or one painted to look as if it has aged. In nature, it is the result of fading, discoloration, crackling and wax and dust buildup. A brand new piece of furniture can be painted to have a patina finish. Why take a new piece of furniture and make it look old, discolored and dirty? It looks good and makes the piece seem like an heirloom.

Whether buying an old piece or painting a new one, the resulting look in the room where the furniture is placed will be an eye-catcher.

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$92 Billion!!!

World Furniture Trade Forecast To Hit US $92 Billion
By Chong Jin Hun
March 30, 2007

GUANGZHOU: World furniture trade is forecast to hit some US$92 billion (RM318.32 billion) this year, up 6 per cent from the US$87 billion (RM301.02 billion) last year, in tandem with the rapid globalisation of the industry, a renowned trade fair organiser said.

Udo Traeger, vice-president for furniture and interior design with Germany’s Koelnmesse GmbH, which organises the prestigious “interzum”-branded international furniture production trade fairs, said the uptrend is ongoing as more players are exporting their products.

“Current forecasts suggest that trade will grow from US$82 billion (RM283.72 billion) in 2005 and US$87 billion (RM301.02 billion) last year to US$92 billion (RM318.32 billion) this year.

“I think it is a growing trend because the furniture and interior design industry is really globalising. More and more companies are looking for new export markets,” Traeger told reporters at the annual “interzum guangzhou 2007″ trade fair in Guangzhou, China.

The four-day event occupied some 30,000 sq m of space at the Chinese Export Commodities Fair Pazhou Complex.

Malaysia is believed to have exported up to RM8 billion worth of furniture last year, a 4 per cent increase from the RM7.67 billion in 2005, according to the Malaysia Furniture Entrepreneur Association.

Globally, European companies take the lead, accounting for about a third of the world output and exports, Traeger said. But China’s booming furniture sector is fast catching up, helped by the nation’s relatively lower labour cost, which translates into more competitively-priced products.

According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the country had exported US$8.43 billion (RM29.17 billion) worth of furniture in the first half of 2006.

China’s rise in the furniture-making fraternity is largely perceived as a threat by its global counterparts who have no choice but find other means to compete instead of engaging in a no-win price war against lower-cost producers.

Traeger said China’s furniture sector is going strong, with offerings targeted at a broad spectrum of consumers globally. As such, the pricing pressure on players in South-East Asia is expected to increase.

The latest interzum guang- zhou, the fourth since its debut in 2004, has accommodated some 500 exhibitors from 25 countries.

About 59,000 visitors are expected to attend the fair which precedes the larger-scaled “interzum 2007″ in Cologne, Germany from May 9 to 12.

The upcoming event, to occupy about 150,000 sq m of gross floor area, is expected to host some 1,300 exhibitors from around 60 countries, besides an estimated 50,000 global visitors.

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Modern Furniture: Are You Sitting On A Fortune?

Whether you’re buying a £20 chair on eBay or bidding on a million-dollar sun-lounger at Sotheby’s, modern furniture can be a smart investment.
By Helen Brown
28 March 2007

In the midst of the London Design Festival in September, Tom Dixon filled Trafalgar Square with 500 polystyrene chairs. They looked a bit like take-away burger boxes and this was intentional. The chairs were designed to be taken away. They were free. But only three months later, many of those who attended the “Great Chair Grab” got wise to the fact that they might (literally) be sitting on a nice bit of cash.

The chairs went on eBay for around £20. Which isn’t much in the designer furniture market. But it’s an awful lot for a freebie polystyrene chair – one of 500. And disciples of Dixon are still happily keying their card details into PayPal – the price is still rising and I wouldn’t be surprised if those who invested a couple of tenners might see their money double, treble or escalate even further in time.

As Jeremy Morrison, director of decorative arts and design at Sotheby’s, explains: “The designer furniture market has really taken off in the past two years. Lead by the New York collectors market, it’s beginning to blur with the contemporary art market. Designers’ prototypes, limited editions and so on are beginning to make tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds. People like Ron Arad, Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid produce ‘design art’ pieces of furniture that are essentially treated like contemporary art. Five years ago, pieces by the Australian designer Newson were making £20,000.

He was a craftsman, making pieces in limited numbers and almost struggling to sell things. Now the same item could cost you £400,000. One of his Lockheed Loungers recently went for $968,000 (£492,000) in New York.”

Its an odd idea, such huge prices paid out for nearly new loungers. And, at $968,000, this second-hand lounger is too expensive to fulfil its function and be lounged on. As Morrison says: “People are happy to put sofas or dressing tables on plinths now – to treat them as sculpture.”

Furniture has traditionally had to “earn” value by sitting around and accruing character until it becomes an antique, or, in the case of 20th- century “pieces” like Arne Jacobsen’s Seven Chair, they can jump the queue by becoming “iconic”. Even being fast-tracked as iconic used to take a couple of decades. But as culture seems to speed up, we’re making decisions about what styles define our eras much faster. Judith Miller, author of the Antiques Price Guide 2007, says that “furniture is ending up under the gavel much sooner after production than when I first began attending auctions”.

Flicking through Miller’s book, I find a sizeable section on modern designers smuggled in amid the Wedgwood and the Chippendale. How would Miller advise a potential investor go about snapping up a bargain? She laughs. “You can never know for certain that something will go up in value. The design world is very fickle. How much can one pay for an Eames chair? They go up to a certain price and then it’s almost as if, globally, buyers draw in their breath and decide ‘that’s an awful lot of money for a chair’. Trends are unpredictable. An interior designer like Jeffrey Bilhuber will suddenly use a chunky bit of oak in a Manhattan loft and the world cries, ‘Ohh! Oak!’ and forgets other woods.”

Miller is very keen on wood though. Good wood, good materials. “If a piece is beautifully made from beautiful materials, it’s probably going to hold its value,” she says. Miller is a particular fan of the exquisite craftsmanship of Senior & Carmichael, whose one-off commission creations for the likes of the Marquess of Bath and the Sir John Soane’s Museum will probably be just as desirable centuries from now.

But when it comes to the world of mass production and modern materials, investors are on dodgier territory. “Anything Philippe Starck made for Alessi, for example, won’t go anywhere,” warns Miller. So put your lemon squeezers down. And hang fire with the foam furniture, too – foam has a fairly limited life span. And lots of the 1960s plastic and fibreglass stuff – although cool – might have lost its sheen and strength.

So what about the gambler with a few hundred quid to play with and a stack of Wallpaper and Icon magazines in the back bedroom? Could somebody like that just try pottering round the design shows and taking a punt on an exciting new name? The experts say the odds are slim of finding the “new” Newson. But Rabih Hage, who runs a gallery in South London, says there’s fun to be had at all levels. “I began my gallery around just one sofa made of nickels by the American designer Johnny Swing. I bought it for $12,000 not so many years ago and now it’s worth $61,000. I work with designers to develop what can only be described as ‘collectibles’. We hosted Paul Cocksedge’s first solo show of 77 lamps priced between £495 and £1,770, and they’ll definitely go up in value. Once there has been a good show or book devoted to a designer, the price tends to go up.”

Who’s buying these “collectibles”? “People mainly aged between 30 to 55,” says Hage. “People who are quite confident in their own taste and buy instinctively.” He says the trend began in the mid 1990s when “people were intimidated by the art world but felt they had a right to their own opinions about design”.

I suppose there are lots of us in that category. The experts may be able to demolish our interpretations of the painters and sculptors – but we know what we like to sit in. And sometimes it’s polystyrene.

How to spot a modern masterpiece

* Don’t buy mass-produced work. Only limited editions and prototypes will stand a chance of making a fast return. Also look out for pieces connected with iconic buildings or events – the ocean liner, the ground-breaking hotel, the Olympics.

* “Look for that designer,” says Morrison, “who is doing new things with a new material. Look for the innovator, the person everybody else will follow.”

* Think about how the materials will age, and what conditions they will require to be kept at their best. Hard woods will acquire a rich patina with use, but white plastic from the 1960s will loose its sci-fi Barbarella appeal if its scuffed and marked with ball-point pen.

* Look what the museums are buying. If the V&A have an order in, then you’re on to a good thing.

* Study interior design magazines. Not only do such magazines identify who’s currently cool, but they’ll be thumbed by interior designers looking for retro chic in 20 years’ time, when you’re looking to sell.

* Don’t buy at the major metropolitan auction houses if you’re looking to snap up a bargain. Go out to the sticks where, as Miller says, “they don’t give a toss if it’s an Eames or an Arad”.

* Only buy what you like. Trust your instinct.

* Avoid anything restored, and make sure handles and any ornament or gilding are original.

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Modular Furniture Remains Stylish

Modulars adapt to your space and changing needs
By ROSEMARY SADEZ FRIEDMANN
2007-02-26

Oh, those amazing modulars. Remember the “pit groups” introduced in the 60’s and still going strong in the 70’s? They were big, bulky and brazen looking.

At the time these modular groups were meant for the family room. The intention was to help create a casual atmosphere and to support rugged use. The look was ‘let’s play’ — for adults and well as children. Back then your home wasn’t up to date unless you owned a pit group.

Consumers found these modulars to be very flexible, but wanted more. So furniture manufacturers responded to that need. Modulars were then renamed “sectionals” and became the right look for every style. And virtually every room.

Though contemporary was the first style that evolved, sectionals today fit into most motifs. The frames and upholstery applied to these pieces run the gamut from contemporary to traditional to early American to middle-of-the-road, better known in decorating circles as transitional.

One reason for the popularity of sectionals is their versatility. They’re called sectionals because they come in sections, offering consumer the opportunity to buy just enough pieces to fit the room. They are great problem-solvers because they are changeable, allowing for periodic rearrangement.

And, if the mood so strikes you, or your requirements change, you often can add pieces to the arrangement.

The various sizes and shapes allow the fitting together of countless configurations to accommodate individual needs and space. The modules come in straight pieces, in curved pieces and in lounge chair pieces. They have recliners in some sets as well. The idea is sort of like going to a furniture cafeteria, picking this piece and then that one and ending up with exactly what you want.

Still another advantage is when moving from one home to another, the sectional will have a better chance of fitting into the new location due to its flexibility and versatility. If you move into a smaller home, just get rid of pieces in the sectional that don’t fit. If moving into a larger home, just add occasional chairs to fill out the space.

The sectional has prospered because it has adapted to pass the test of time. Though sectionals have been around now for almost five decades, their popularity still runs strong.

(Rosemary Sadez Friedmann, an interior designer in Naples, Fla., is author of “Mystery of Color,” available at Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Amazon.com.)

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