The heart of the rug business is DESIGN. The heart of home fashions is Design. DESIGN is supported by construction, fiber, texture and color.
Greige is out. Color is in. Go to “Walking the Market” in rugnewsanddesign.com to see approximately 130 new introductions from Atlanta, Las Vegas and NY NOW.
The love affair with the Internet is over. Vendors are offering brick and mortar the opportunity to sell value and get margins.
As a fashion business the retailers will have to get into and out of products faster. The key product characteristic is short production runs featuring innovation and frequent design updates. Nimble management is the new marketing concept as is getting out early.
- Hand loomed and hand tufted are both short run, design focused products.
- More and more interesting machine woven products coming.
- Design limitations are not from the production side, but from the yarn consumption side because any design has to reach a be broad enough range of consumers to use up the yarn in a creel.
The gossip was about who is hot and who is not, as always at trade shows Business was active, and showrooms were packed. The middle market, the step-up market featured a lot of new introductions.
In the end, good design is not price or channel sensitive, it is available at many price points. Meeting specifications in terms or fiber or construction is critical to the integrity of the product.
