Loose and slouchy ready-made slipcovers for sofas and chairs are a real boon to the budget-minded, whether looking to hide the flaws of a flea-market find or refresh a room with a seasonal change of wardrobe.
But in recent years, the ready-made remedy became rather too much of a good thing. The large, loose, often elasticized throws turned love seats into lumps, and sofas into shapeless billows--though they were certainly a quick fix and a lot less expensive than reupholstering or custom-made slipcovers.
Ten years ago, Washington designer Gary Lovejoy fell for the shabby chic look, draping his living room furniture in white canvas painter's dropcloths. Today? "They're gone. The 'in' look in slipcovers now is sleek and fitted to show off the furniture's silhouette," he says.
At the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York recently, Lovejoy adds, tight slipcovers were the rule. "The old ones dragged on the floor and picked up dust. The new ones are less cumbersome. They don't slip and slide around every time you move."
Fortunately for consumers, the market is adapting to the shift in taste.
"Everybody wants slipcovers that fit," says Sallie Siegal, founder of Todo Es, an online company based in Mission Viejo that uses computers to design slipcovers that fit more like a glove and less like a pair of XXL Sansabelt pants ([800] 467-2810; http://www.todoes.com).
"People are tired of spending half their life tucking in loose throws. They want the arms of their furniture defined, not puckered with elastic running down the middle. The more their slipcovers look like upholstery, the happier they are," says Siegal.
Siegal, who started her career in women's fashion, launched Todo Es in 1997 as a source for decorative pillows. But her customers started asking for slipcovers too, she says, with dressmaker details such as welting, defined arms, hidden zippers, knife-edged kick-pleats, bows and more choices in skirt styles. When Siegal took the company in that direction, business mushroomed; within a year, the firm was doing 15 times more work than before.
"How could I ignore it? They wanted slipcovers for everything--dining room chairs, armchairs, wingbacks and sofas--and they didn't want baggy, ready-mades."
