Archive for April, 2008
By: Furniture World Magazine
A broad selection of innovative designs and luxury product from around the globe will be featured as part of the juried design sections at the 2008 July Las Vegas Market held July 28 – August 1, 2008.
The juried showcase sections include ConText, Design & Living and Living Green Pavilion. Combined, the trio represents a comprehensive array of the home furnishings industry’s most discriminating creations. More than 200 exhibitors will be presenting their design-inspired lines, and the showcases will boast a strong international flavor from Europe and other parts of the world.
Upon reaching the fifth floor of Building C, buyers will find each juried showcase clearly defined through custom visual and auditory treatments communicating each showcase theme. Design & Living will convey a hip and contemporary feel throughout its 40,000 square feet of exhibit space; while across the hall crisp, chic accents will define the more than 13,000 square feet of the ConText showcase. Meanwhile the highly anticipated 12,000-plus-square-foot Living Green Pavilion will convey an organic and natural feel through green design and sustainable features. An Italian inspired espresso bar and a relaxing buyers lounge will further enhance the fifth floor, welcoming market attendees.
The three juried showcases have grown in response to increased attendance from interior designers and high-end retailers seeking more form-focused products at Las Vegas Market. During the Winter Las Vegas Market attendance from this design sector doubled, making up 12 percent of total Market attendees.
“Increased attendance within the design sector clearly demonstrates that ‘high end’ is in ‘high demand’ at Las Vegas Market.” These three juried showcases are expected to satisfy that demand as they are among the most inspiring and progressive faces at Las Vegas Market,” said Tim Branscome, Vice President of International Business Development of World Market Center Las Vegas.
Specifically, ConText, which made its debut at Winter 2008 Las Vegas Market, is a premier showcase for home textiles and bedding. This summer it will feature trend-setting designs as well as classic, timeless designs, offering every retailer and designer something beautiful, exciting and new.
Notable exhibitors will include Bella Notte, Luiz Fine Linens, Karma Living, Shamiana, Down Inc. and many more.
Design & Living will deliver design-conscious visitors’ favorite innovators, as well as previously unseen talent, in various styles – from traditional to contemporary. There is anticipated to be over 100 hand-picked companies including Haute House, Style de Vie, Emmanuel Design Group, Redford House, John Strauss Furniture Design and others who will showcase furniture, home and wall décor and lighting.
Living Green Pavilion will return for its third market, educating and delighting buyers with sustainable furnishings or furniture using wood, cushioning, fabrics and finishing materials that can be renewed through natural processes over prolonged periods of time. The Living Green Pavilion is the country’s largest, most comprehensive venue of its kind showcasing the best in fashionable, accessible, and sustainable furnishings for the mainstream market. All products shown will be verified sustainable, and include many first time exhibitors at Las Vegas Market such as Harden Furniture, one of the first to be awarded the prestigious Silver Exemplary status by the Sustainable Furniture Council, and The Natural Bedroom by Vivetique, one of the earliest manufacturers of natural bedding.
“We’re thrilled to be moving these highly-acclaimed showcases from their previous temporary exhibit locations to the Las Vegas Design Center in conjunction with the opening of Building C,” said Branscome. “There’s no question their prime location in our new state-of-the-art space will draw enormous buyer traffic and add to the excitement of celebrating our first market entirely on the World Market Center campus.”
Manufacturers interested in learning more about criteria to exhibit in these juried showcases should e-mail design@lasvegasmarket.com.
The Summer 2008 Las Vegas Market is scheduled for July 28 through Aug. 1, 2008 at the World Market Center & Pavilions. For more information about World Market Center Las Vegas, including registration and discounted hotel room offers, please visit www.LasVegasMarket.com.
About World Market Center Las Vegas: World Market Center Las Vegas is an integrated home and hospitality contract furnishings showroom and trade complex in Las Vegas. When fully built, at 12 million square feet in 8 buildings, World Market Center will be the largest trade show complex in the world. The $3 billion, state-of-the-art campus will showcase furniture, decorative accessories, lighting, area rugs, home textile and related segments, as well as the Las Vegas Design Center (LVDC) open year-round to the trade. World Market Center produces the semi-annual Las Vegas Market, held every January and July, and is the fastest growing home furnishings trade show in the world. World Market Center is now leasing the third building to a broad cross-section of the home furnishings industry.
April 30th, 2008
COLUMBUS, Ohio — As a consumer, Jason Salavon has had the experience of putting together the sleek, affordable furniture of popular retailer Ikea. As an artist, he decided he’d rather break the Scandinavian company down.
Salavon created a collection of works inspired by the global home furnishings chain, whose typically mammoth blue and gold stores offer everything from build-it-yourself sofas to plates of Swedish meatballs.
The influence isn’t always obvious. One of the centrepieces of Salavon’s exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art is a soft-bound booklet with nothing more than blocks of colours arranged in different patterns on each of its 374 pages.
It’s the artist’s version of the Ikea store catalogue, after a computer reduced each page of “Ektorp” model couches, “Svind” entertainment centres and other products to arrays of average colours. Large prints of some of the individual pages hang on the walls of the gallery.
“I’m interested in taking the known and abstracting it into some sort of new space,” said Salavon, 37.
“Currents: Jason Salavon” runs through May 4 in Columbus. The exhibit is scheduled at the Inman Gallery in Houston from May 30 through July 5. Duplicates of some of the pieces were displayed this weekend at the Art Chicago 2008 contemporary art expo.
Another central piece of the exhibit projects a living room scene onto a slim, one-storey panel. Through computer morphing, the Ikea-inspired furnishings slowly shift styles and colours over the course of two hours, though the room maintains its basic components: a sofa, chair, lamp, coffee table and rug.
Salavon, who minored in computer science and used to work on Nintendo 64 video games, said his art generally puts pop culture archetypes through computer permutations to spread them out into their root patterns.
One previous work deconstructed the movie “Titanic” into a mosaic of its individual frames, each one averaged out to its most representative colour. In a piece acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., Salavon layered and averaged 64 nights’ worth of David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien late-night monologues into three ghostly videos projected side by side.
A project commissioned for the U.S. Census Bureau’s new headquarters outside Washington will turn demographic data into billowing streams of colour on a curving, 12-metre glass wall.
Salavon said he was drawn to Ikea because he’d heard that the company’s catalogue, sent to consumers around the world, is printed in greater numbers each year than the Bible.
While a grand total on global Bible distribution doesn’t exist, it’s popular to say that more than 100 million copies are distributed each year, Marco Herrera, director of international ministries for the American Bible Society, said in response to an e-mail.
Ikea’s website shows 191 million copies of the Swedish retailer’s catalogue were printed worldwide last year.
Unlike the Bible, the catalogue is meant to be replaced every year. Because it is both ubiquitous and a throwaway, it can tell us about the trends of the moment, seen clearly through Salavon’s art, said Joe Houston, the museum’s associate curator.
“You begin to see - what are the popular colours, really, of 2007?” Houston said.
Salavon isn’t the first artist to find his muse at Ikea, which has more than 270 stores worldwide. An arts agency in Seattle has sponsored short plays performed in an Ikea showroom. Earlier this year a comedian spent a week living in the model rooms of a New Jersey Ikea store for a series of videos posted on his website.
Ikea appreciates the attention from the art community, said Mona Astra Liss, a spokeswoman for the company’s U.S. operations. She declined to comment directly on Salavon’s works without having seen them but compared the use of Ikea in art to so-called Ikea hackers - people who rework the furniture into their own designs and creations.
“We love all our fans and welcome them with open arms,” she said.
Salavon said he probably wouldn’t go so far as to call himself an Ikea fan, though he has shopped there.
“I’ve used the little Allen wrench to put things together and have had the instructions out on the floor trying to figure out what hooked into what,” he said.
April 29th, 2008
Strongwater to visit Forum Shops boutique
Artist Jay Strongwater will visit with collectors of his designs at his boutique inside the Forum Shops at Caesars.
His appearances are scheduled from 4-8 p.m. Friday and 2-5 p.m. May 3.
He will be signing new purchases while at the boutique.
Strongwater is known for his enameled and bejeweled flora and fauna accents for the home.
Additionally, 10 percent of sales during his visits will be donated to the Las Vegas Philharmonic.
The boutique is located at 3500 Las Vegas Blvd. S., Suite N25.
Reservations are requested and can be made by calling 990-2544 or e-mailing rsvp@gmgvegas.com
Restaurant designer to speak at center
Las Vegas Design Center at World Market Center will welcome Jennifer Johanson, chief executive officer and design leader for EDG Interior Architecture + Design, for its monthly First Friday event.
Johanson’s presentation, “Restaurant Design Strategies for Impact and Performance,” will take place from 10-11:30 a.m. on the 16th floor of World Market Center’s Building B, 475 S. Grand Central Parkway. Her seminar is open to interior designers and other industry professionals.
She has been at the forefront of transforming restaurant and food-service concepts for nearly 20 years. Johanson’s California-based EDG provides restaurant and hospitality design services throughout the world; its clients include premier chefs Wolfgang Puck, Joachim Splichal, Eric Ripert, Kent Rathbun and Bradley Ogden. In addition to designing independent restaurants, Johanson and her team are guiding the design of new hotel restaurant venues for Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Hilton and Caesars Palace.
“Restaurants are social spaces that enliven the spirit and bring us together. But to achieve lasting success, great restaurant design needs to deliver a solid platform for financial performance,” said Johanson.
During her presentation, Johanson will share case studies that illuminate the role of the restaurant designer as a strategic collaborator. She will illustrate how to place design in the realm of strategy versus product, highlighting design innovations that generate excitement and enhance client revenue.
The day’s festivities also will include showroom specials and hospitality.
Reservations are requested and can be made by e-mailing LVDC@LVDesignCenter.com or calling 599-3093.
April 28th, 2008
Cool colors: Orange and red aren’t quite dead, but the trendiest hues — purple, green, silver, even pale magenta — have a blue streak. The color of the season falls somewhere between turquoise and cobalt, as shown on the Fly chair by Arco.
Spring awakening: Antlers and wintry forest creatures have been replaced by trees, butterflies, mushrooms and daisies, often rendered with “Brady Bunch” cheeriness. The motifs can be found on rugs, clocks and lighting fixtures. One cute example: Donna Wilson’s TreeHug, a tall beanbag trunk and branches covered in knitted lamb’s wool, available through Case Furniture.
Ethnic diversity: Just when you think you’ve seen every native pattern interpreted for home décor, Edra rolls out Francesco Binfare’s platform cushions in Korean fabrics and Moroso showcases a Nanook collection that takes its inspiration from the geometric graphics of the Inuit culture.
Surrealism:Zana’s Dama bedroom suite includes dressers and nightstands with drawers that evoke Man Ray’s famed eyes. British designer Jake Phipps’ Jeeves & Wooster pendant light shaped like a black derby was a tip of the hat to Rene Magritte; available through Hidden Art Shop.
Lighting with less: Over-the-top crystal chandeliers also lightened up. Brand van Egmond’s Floating Candles are metal fixtures cast as melting wax chamber sticks, and Meta’s lantern is one giant crystal made with 24 glass panes set in a silvery metal called paktong.
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David A. Keeps
April 25th, 2008
By: Furniture World Magazine
Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. announced that its Board of Directors has elected Albert L. Prillaman as Chairman to focus on strategic issues. “The Board and I asked Albert to return to his role as Chairman to take a more active role in strategic matters given the uncertainties facing the furniture industry in the current business environment,” said Jeffrey R. Scheffer, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We believe tapping Albert’s talent and experience in these turbulent times for the industry will strengthen the company and better position us for the eventual upturn in business,” concluded Mr. Scheffer.
Established in 1924, Stanley Furniture Company, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of wood furniture targeted at the upper-medium price range of the residential market. Its common stock is traded on the Nasdaq stock market under the symbol STLY.
April 25th, 2008
Exhibition Lecture Series
The Litchfield Historical Society will present a four part lecture series as part of the society’s year-long celebration of Litchfield County Furniture and Furniture makers. All lectures will begin at 5:30 at St. Michaels Church House, 25 South Street in Litchfield. The society will hold a reception at the museum following each lecture.
The series will begin on Friday May 9th when Thomas Kugelman presents “Collecting Connecticut Antiques Today.”
Thomas P. Kugelman is co-author with his wife, Alice K Kugelman, and furniture consultant Robert Lionetti, of the encyclopedic volume, “Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and his Contemporaries 1750-1800,” recently published by the Connecticut Historical Society. The Kugelmans were also co-curators of the highly acclaimed 2005 exhibition by the same name, seen at the Concord Museum and in Hartford. They are lifelong collectors and independent furniture scholars who, in 1990, created the Hartford Case Furniture Survey, a long-term, open-ended project to learn about the region’s eighteenth-century cabinetmakers, how to identify their work, and its importance as part of the rich cultural heritage of the Connecticut valley.
The reception following this lecture is sponsored by the Hog River Journal
The lecture series is designed to complement the Litchfield Historical Society’s latest exhibition, To Please Any Taste: Litchfield County Furniture and Furniture Makers, 1780-1830. This exhibit not only focuses on identifying style, construction techniques, and regional attributes, but also interprets the furniture as a reflection of th economic and social changes in Litchfield County during the decades from 1780-1830.
The next lecture will be May 16th with William Hosley speaking on Hartford’s Role in the Origins of Antique Collecting in America. On Friday May 30th, Lynne Brickley will offer: Litchfield’s Colonial Revival Collectors and Dealers. The series concludes on June 6th with Briann Greenfield who will speak on Jewish Antique Dealers in New England.
The exhibition includes over thirty examples of Litchfield County furniture. In addition to pieces from the Litchfield Historical Society’s collection, furniture from the Yale University Art Museum, Connecticut Historical Society, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, Hartford Steam Boiler an AIG Company, Connecticut Landmarks, Salisbury Association, Torrington Historical Society, and Winterthur as well as pieces from private lenders will be showcased in the exhibition.
The exhibit will be on display from April 19 through November 30, 2008. An exhibition catalog and CD database will accompany the show. Please call the Litchfield Historical Society at 860-567-4501 for further information or to be added to our email list. Check the Society’s Web site, www.litchfieldhistoricalsociety.org, for more information on upcoming programs and events.
April 23rd, 2008
Want the coolest kids on the road? Kit out their bedrooms with some Charles & Ray Eames children’s furniture.
Originally designed in 1945 and reissued by Vitra as a special collector’s edition, the items in the range were amongst the first to be made from moulded maple plywood, but with a design that’s still playful and aimed very much at kids - not least in terms of height.
Choose from a red or natural finish, with the table selling for £194 and the chairs at £286. Just make sure they don’t draw all over it.
Find out more at the Lollipop Shoppe website
For more of the same with a contemporary twist, check out our newly-launched Switched On Set website
April 23rd, 2008
PORTERSVILLE, Pa., (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Adams Manufacturing Corp. asks, “Which colors are best?” For the big, comfortable resin chaise lounges, white is the best color. Dark colors absorb heat more quickly, and can be uncomfortable to use on sunny days. Anyone who’s sat on a hot chaise lounge while wearing a bathing suit will insist that their chaise lounges be white and only white.
For the popular Adirondack resin chairs, all the colors work well. Many people like to coordinate their Adirondacks with the colors they’ve chosen for their homes and patios. While the darker colors do absorb heat, it’s not the big issue it is with chaise lounges.
Any color is appropriate for the other stacking chairs. But, there is one very important consideration. Discerning buyers make sure they have the texture they like. Resin chairs come with two basic types of surface. The glossy finish is easier to keep clean. It can be wiped with a wet cloth, or simply hosed off.
Many prefer the softer, matte finish. That finish is slightly matted, and is not as shiny as the glossy finish. While it’s easy to clean, a soapy rag may work better before rinsing it off with a hose or clean water.
There’s a big advantage in resin furniture. It doesn’t crack, and there’s no paint or varnish to maintain. The color goes clear through the resin, so buyers know they won’t have to be bothered sanding, filling, and painting every year or so. Anyone who’s refinished or repainted a wooden chair knows how long that takes!
If you want to change the color of your resin furniture, your local retailer sells spray cans just for that purpose. In a few minutes, your comfortable resin furniture looks like new, and at a fraction of the cost.
More information: www.adamsmfg.com.
April 22nd, 2008
MILAN, Italy (AFP) — A bed suspended from the ceiling, a 100-percent recyclable chair: young guns and the established names are competing for attention at Milan’s international furniture fair.
Young designers trying to make a name for themselves let their imagination run riot in the “satellite salon” on the fringes of the fair, “I Saloni” as it is known here, which runs until Monday.
One creation was a bed suspended from the ceiling that could be moved up to the ceiling to transform a bedroom into a living room.
The official collection, in the immense exhibition halls on the edge of the city, hosts 2,450 contributors and is expected to receive 270,000 visitors.
But its 230,000 square metres (2.47 million square feet) of space has proved insufficient: many prospective contributors had to be turned away.
French designer Philippe Starck however made it in. He displayed his “Mr. Impossible” chair for Milanaise plastics maker Kartell — because it was considered impossible make until Kartell found the manufacturing solution.
The curved plastic chair, reminiscent of the kind of “futuristic” designs seen in the 1970s, features a curved, shell-like coloured seat supported by transparent plastic legs. What is impossible to see is where the different elements join.
Kartell president Claudio Luti said they had had a good year in 2007 and expected better in 2008, but added: “We are counting on the effect of the salon (the Milan fair) to maintain our momentum.”
At the Minotti stand, another Italian group run by two brothers, the son of the founder, a salesman showed how to assemble and disassemble their kit canape. It boasted a range of elements, from leather to titanium, to be mixed and matche at one’s leisure.
The company was stepping up its push into the international market, which already accounted for 80 percent of its sales in 60 countries, said an executive.
The Colico group meanwhile had its entirely recyclable chair, La Diva, on display. Ultra-light and virtually indestructible, the seat looks like an inverted lampshade — albeit a designer one. The space-age looking creation is one of the group’s star products.
Futura, another firm, offered a white canape which, while at first sight unremarkable, separates in the centre, each half rotating independently of the other to create any combination of bed or chair. And at the press of a button in transforms itself a double bed.
The Italian producers’ policy of innovation, internationalism and investment have borne their fruits for several years.
“Caution marked the beginning of 2008 but the buzz at the salon seems a long way away from the signs of crisis in the international markets,” said Rosario Messina, president of the company that organised the fair.
The Italian gift for designer furniture is one of the country’s trump cards, with several companies having made their against stiff competition from Asian firms.
Last year, Italian furniture manufacturers posted sales 40 billion euros (64 billion dollars) an increase of 4.5 percent, with a third of those sales on the international market.
April 21st, 2008
HCM CITY — Furniture and handicraft makers yesterday discussed participation in a furniture fair in Hong Kong with a visiting delegation from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, a trade promotion agency.
The Hong Kong International Furniture Fair will be held from October 28 to 31, and will be organised by the council, a semi-autonomous government agency mandated to promote trade, and the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of HCM City (HAWA).
Last year, the exhibition attracted 172 exhibitors from 19 countries and territories and more than 8,000 buyers, 50 per cent of them foreigners.
Dang Quoc Hung, vice chairman of HAWA, said the exhibition would provide Vietnamese wood and handicraft makers a good opportunity to find global partners, adding that his association would help them take part.
Viet Nam is now the fourth biggest furniture exporter in the world, and the second in Southeast Asia, he said.
Johnson Ng, exhibition manager at HKTDC, said Vietnamese products would be highlighted at this year’s fair, adding Viet Nam’s outdoor furniture was becoming very attractive to European and American buyers due to a change in lifestyles in those places with people wishing to live closer to nature. — VNS
April 21st, 2008
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