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."
