High Point market was a blast this year. Scott, Emily, Eli and I left Austin at 5am on Saturday and went straight to the market, and one of our favorite showrooms, Vanguard Furniture, the minute we arrived. Here we are on Vanguard’s roof top deck:
We were honored to be selected to participate in the Home Accents Today magazine retailer breakfast. It was great to hear from all the other participating retailers about the opportunities and challenges in today’s retail environment.
High Point is the place to go to catch all the latest innovations in the furniture and design industry. All the design leaders are there, especially if they have product to share, such as the new Kelly Wearstler lighting collection from Visual Comfort.
One of our team’s highlights was a tour through the new Hickory Chair showroom, where we got to meet design doyennes Suzanne Kasler, Alexa Hampton and Mariette Himes Gomez (thank you, Tommy!).
Hickory Chair moved into a new building this year and as such, had to change all their layouts and set ups. The building they moved into (Market Square) is one of Scott and my favorites. It has creaky old wood floors and ceilings, brick walls and big windows with black metal frames. It has a lot of character.
But, sometimes that character can be a distraction to the furniture, especially when you need the fabric colors to look good.
We really enjoyed speaking with Suzanne Kasler who told us about how the ‘orange’ in the wood and the contrasting brick color presented a design challenge to the furniture pieces she wanted to present.
You can see what she meant here in this photo:
In one area, she ended up upholstering all the furniture in a basic ticking stripe. She said it was the first time she had ever done just one fabric on everything like that, but as market got close, she started to panic, so she added some solid white chairs at both ends.
You can barely tell all these pieces are done in a black and white ticking stripe!
Do you know how great it was to hear Suzanne said she ‘panicked’ near the end? I think all designers have those wake up in the middle of night worries. But, I would like to think at some point, maybe after being published in Veranda like Suzanne, I wouldn’t panic anymore, but it was reassuring to hear it happens to all designers!
Well, no need to panic. The furniture looked amazing! The ticking stripe was barely noticeable and read as a solid from a distance. And, up close it looked wonderful- comfortable, casual, approachable and still elegant. In other areas, Suzanne used only linen, velvet and leather.
The leather she used (shown below on the side chair and bed) are pale blue/grays. I don’t usually use leather because it often looks heavy, but here, with the white wood and light surroundings, it looks really ‘fresh’
Here are some of the areas with the linens. She used white lacquer (without a high sheen) and a birch toned wood throughout. Propped up by seagrass rugs and airy lamps and chandeliers, the whole space was a treat!
Essentially, you can see from the length of this blog that we really enjoy High Point market and the inspiration gleaned from it is second to none. Therefore, we have a lot of new product on order and will enjoy working it into our projects and retail vignettes as it trickles in over the next four to five months (that is a whole other blog topic in and of its own)!