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Business of Home Podcast
The Thursday Show: What happened in Paris? Plus: Heimtextil highlights
01:12:39
BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus and host Dennis Scully discuss the biggest news in the industry. Later, BOH managing editor Haley Chouinard joins the show to share highlights from Heimtextil, and editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen recaps Paris Déco Off.
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- [00:08]
Dennis Scully
This is Business of Home. I'm Dennis Scully and welcome to the Thursday Show. Later on, I'll be talking to boh's managing editor, Hayley Chouinard about Heimtech Steel and editor in chief Caitlin Peterson about Paris Design Week. But first, we're going to catch up on the news, including the latest on The TikTok ban LCDQ's rebrand and the future of home fragrances. To do, I'm joined by Business of Homes executive editor Fred Nicholas. Hi, Fred.
- [00:36]
Fred Nicholas
Hi, Dennis. Bienvenue. Welcome back from Paris. How was it?
- [00:40]
Dennis Scully
Did you miss me while I was gone?
- [00:42]
Fred Nicholas
I sure did. Last week, while you were and Kaelyn were in Paris and Hayley was in Germany, I was taking two small children to ikea. That was my design week here. I know you're going to recap it in full with Caitlin, but how was it? How was Paris? It looked like a lot of fun on Instagram, but then again, I guess it always does.
- [01:00]
Dennis Scully
Well, Paris is pretty fabulous, although pretty chilly. I won't lie. I might have come back with my usual Paris post Paris cold, but it's so worth it. And honestly, it's just fun to see all the people that you get to see while you're there. That's, as I think I said in our last show, that's half the fun.
- [01:21]
Fred Nicholas
Cold or no, your voice is sounding rich and honeyed as ever, Dennis. And if you need, I'll do more talking. I don't mind.
- [01:27]
Dennis Scully
I may call upon you for that later. Yeah. Thank you.
- [01:30]
Fred Nicholas
Well, let's quickly look back on Monday's episode of Conversation with English designer Rita Koenig. Always charming. I feel like I say that about every British designer we have on the show, but it is very true when it comes to Rita. Fun conversation. Absolutely.
- [01:41]
Dennis Scully
A fun conversation. And, you know, you never know when you check in with somebody beyond what you assume is going to be the big news. And she wanted to share her big coming to America story. But what was interesting that she revealed towards the end of the conversation in the context of talking about her being named to the AD100 and also named as the interior designer of the year. From House and Garden, you learn that she finally believes that she is ready now to shake off the imposter syndrome that she sort of joked about and be on the same level as her famous mother and kind of come out from underneath that shadow. And I thought that was really interesting to have her share that. And I was sort of. I was sort of moved by that, actually.
- [02:32]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. I was originally considering calling the podcast Rita Koenig Grows up because that's what she said. She's like, I finally feel like a grown up. But yeah, and we should say of course her famous mother, Nina Campbell. But yeah, I was touched by that as well. And it's kind of a reminder that even the industry sort of most celebrated stars sometimes doubt their own abilities or their own belonging. And I think that was really interesting. Finally feeling like a grown up was very relatable. I'm still getting there myself. Although.
- [03:00]
Dennis Scully
Exactly.
- [03:00]
Fred Nicholas
Maybe we'll do a podcast it when I get there.
- [03:03]
Dennis Scully
I'm looking forward to that day myself, so I'm happy for her. All right, we're going to get into the news in just a minute, but first a quick break. This podcast is sponsored by Leloy. Lalloy will be at Vegas market this month, January 26th through the 30th at the World Market center showroom B480. They'll be bringing nine all new rug collections, plus hundreds of one of a kind rugs, wall art, pillows and pool. Laloy highly recommends making an appointment for the best possible market experience, which you can do@laloyrugs.com that's L O L O I rugs.com and follow them on Instagram and TikTok at laloiregs. This podcast is also sponsored by Anthem+ smart showering only from Kohler Anthem+ creates a transportive world for body and mind with every shower. It combines water, steam, light and sound in a fully immersive sensory experience with custom settings to match any mood and enhance any routine. Discover how you can design a personalized escape with Anthem plus smart showering@kohler.com showers and we're back. First up, Fred, the TikTok ban.
- [04:33]
Fred Nicholas
Last year, Congress gave TikTok's parent company, ByteDance and Ultimatum either sell the app's U.S. business or face a nationwide ban. Over the weekend, that deadline came to pass and American users lost access. But it didn't end there. There was a lot more than that. A lot more back and forth over the weekend.
- [04:52]
Dennis Scully
A lot more back and forth. And did America just feel as if it was going to lose their mind for a moment? Fred, when everyone kept posting how they were blocked out of their and that it wasn't there, what was your sense?
- [05:04]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, it was a real case of whiplash because of course I was reading about it on Instagram stories. It's a very classic elder millennial thing to get the news about TikTok from another social platform. Yeah, TikTok went away for 12 hours, something like that, and then it came back, apparently due to the intervention of President Trump. I mean, we're not a tech podcast, we're not a politics podcast. Obviously, if you read the people who really know about this stuff, they don't know either. It's not clear what's going to happen. But. But it is interesting, I guess, to imagine a world without TikTok. I think if they are able to figure out a deal and it comes back, it's sort of as you were. But if they're not, and I think now we all know that the possibility is very real, that will change a few things. I don't know what was your take on that very brief 12 hour ban and what it might look like if we. What's going to happen to our precious micro trends, Dennis? What will we talk about at the end of the show if our micro trends go away?
- [05:57]
Dennis Scully
Well, it was so interesting because I saw that Business of Fashion had a piece about the decline and fall of the viral micro trend and I didn't know if that was a way of Preparing us for TikTok eventually going away to sort of soften the blow. Oh, the micro trends had kind of moved on. I thought it was interesting for those few hours, as you say, to see the world without TikTok. And really, did it feel that different, Fred?
- [06:23]
Fred Nicholas
Well, as a 42 year old, it did not feel that different for me. I'm sure other people feel differently, but yeah, I mean, I mean, Caroline Burke, one of our producers on the show here, and Aidan, one of our editors, wrote a great article talking to design creators who have used TikTok as a platform to grow their audience. I think within the design industry, TikTok never really became the app the way it did for music and fashion, but I do think it made a difference. I think it was a way for people to get viral quickly who missed the Instagram wave. It was a great way for younger designers to grow a big audience relatively quickly. And I think it brought a lot of new voices into the mix. So clearly there were people who were in the design world who are definitely going to Ms. TikTok, but I think because it never really took over our industry the way it did other industries. It's more like all the designers I follow on Instagram were upset about losing this entertainment thing, this thing to distract them, I think, to some degree, as much as people like TikTok. I don't think anyone was, or very few people in our world were banking on TikTok as their source of income or their source of marketing. I don't know if you feel differently.
- [07:32]
Dennis Scully
I can't imagine that in our world, truth be told, that the impact is going to be that dramatic one way or the other. So we'll see how it shakes out. I think the much bigger issue is probably Trump's impact on tariffs and all of that talk, and maybe we should find a way to segue into all of that.
- [07:54]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, of course. I mean, the TikTok ban is really like, the drama around it is really centered around the ban coming up against Trump taking office on Monday. And that's created a lot of back and forth. But probably the more impactful thing is these announced proposed tariffs, which may go into effect on February 1, which is basically a week away. And the latest numbers that I've seen are 25% on Canada and Mexico and 10% on China. That's very significant. It's just the hard part is not really knowing if that's for real. And I spent the morning talking to a couple people in the sourcing world. They said that everybody is preparing for it. And I think that there is a sense that there will be something coming. But how big the numbers are really does make a difference. 10% on China is probably the lower end of what everyone was expecting. 25% on Canada and Mexico definitely would shake a few things up.
- [08:43]
Dennis Scully
It was interesting yesterday. The financial markets were quite strong, and the perception among many was that the reason the market was rallying was because Trump didn't immediately put tariffs into effect. And everybody thought, oh, what a relief. But then, of course, as you say, it's sort of hour by hour and it's impossible to keep up. But it's hard to believe, as you and I have talked about in the past, with all of the lip service that President Trump has given to tariffs, it's hard to believe that they're not coming in one form or another. The Financial Times has it, half the newspaper is about the tariffs coming. So I think the financial press certainly thinks it's happening.
- [09:23]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, I think. I think something's going to happen. I mean, I think also, you know, it's possible that this will benefit domestic manufacturing. I think the problem, though, is just that, like, the speed of shifting manufacturing around is a lot slower than the speed of signing a bill. You know what I mean? I think, like, I was talking to one guy who does sourcing, and he was saying it takes longer than you think to move manufacturing out of one country into another. It's not plug and play. Every country has its own peculiarities and you can't just go like, oh, tariffs are going to go up in China 20%. I'll just shift over to Vietnam and absorb that. Like, it takes time. And even if you wanted to reshore manufacturing in the US that will take a lot more time because the labor force isn't here the way it was in the 80s and 90s. So listen, I think the safest assumption is that there will be tariffs and that prices will probably go up again if they're center around home furnishings. And just in general, because people are making moves to try and anticipate tariffs, probably prices will go up a little bit anyway. So for the time being, that's my working assumption. And we will watch the news closely and we will talk about it for sure next Thursday.
- [10:23]
Dennis Scully
No, absolutely. I thought it was so interesting to see Laura Albers, the CEO William Sonoma was in Davos and talking up the fact that they've been moving so much out of China that she's been trying to be well ahead of this. And we certainly heard from Gary Friedman on the RH call talk about how much he's been trying to move out of China.
- [10:40]
Fred Nicholas
And Lee, Mayor of Havenly.
- [10:43]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. And Lee, Mayor of Havenly. So, I mean, Quite a few CEOs have talked about how they've been trying to be well out in front of this. The challenge is going to be who knows where it really lands, as you say. But we will stay tuned and I'm certain that we will have more to report on in that in the coming weeks. But in the meantime, let's talk about the LCDQ rebrand. After 15 years, the LA Cienega Design Quarter will now be called Design Los Angeles. The new name also comes with a few structural changes, including expansion. The organization will now cover showrooms, galleries and studios across the entire city. So it's really going to broaden out, Fred. And there are a lot of big plans in the works.
- [11:27]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah. And I mean the timing here is coincidental. Of course, they were planning these changes before the horrible wildfires. But I do think it comes at a time in which obviously the LA design community is very much coming together around recovering from the wildfires, sorting through the damage, organizing around relief efforts. So we're still thinking of everyone in la, and I hope they're doing as best as can be expected under the circumstances. Just to sort of dial in on this, Dennis, I think everyone in LA probably knows what the LCDQ is and what legends is. I'm curious, you talked to Becky Birdwell, who I believe is the director of lcdq. I'm curious if you could talk about what's behind some of these changes here.
- [12:04]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, it's interesting because we've talked in the past about how many of the companies that were once in the PDC had moved out onto the street. This area around La Cienega and Melrose became a strip where a lot of showrooms, a lot of stores were located. And the Legends of La Cienega became this big event where designers would be brought in to do windows. I don't know if you remember Mark Sykes sharing with us the fact that he had. Right. He had done his window. Who but Nancy Myers discovers him? So, I mean, it was a big event, and people would come from far and wide, and it would get a lot of people coming to the showrooms that were on the street. And it created a lot of interest and buzz. But. But because it was somewhat limited to that area, there was the hope and desire that they could figure out a way to expand it to a lot of showrooms that have moved to many different areas around LA and also broaden it out so that it could include lots of different kinds of companies that wanted to participate. And I think when Becky took it over last year, she wanted to make sort of a soft entrance, kind of get a sense of what Legends was at the time and start to come up with some ideas to make some meaningful changes.
- [13:27]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think that there was a time when the design scene in LA was very strongly divided between, okay, you've got the building and you've got the street, and that's all there is. And now I think it's really sprawled out over the entire city. It's kind of a testament to how much LA's design scene has really grown, that there are all these pockets. And it makes sense to try and expand this organization to include everybody who's not in the pdc. Although I'm sure there are people who are in the PDC who are involved as well, too. Legends, I know, has had its ups and downs. I'm curious what the thought is behind. We want to make this the next Legends an absolute must attend. What are they going to try and do to ignite excitement around it?
- [14:04]
Dennis Scully
Well, I think Becky is keen to really shake up this model of panel discussions and a lot of the things that you could experience at any other Design Week or any other kind of event around the country. I think she's really looking to make it much more inspirational. I think she's looking to really have deeper conversations with artisans and craftspeople and designers and really have conversations that go a little bit deeper, perhaps, than what many of these events have been like in the past. I think she really wants it to be, as I say, inspiring and lift people up and not just be about some of the traditional formats, if you will, of what some of these design events have been.
- [14:55]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, it's tough. Design events are a tricky beast. You know, I mean, I think, like, a lot of the times they're sort of like an excuse for everyone to get together. There's, like, a reasonably nice panel, but, you know, the real utility of it is that you're all in a room together talking over things. The real conversation is kind of the gossip that happens over the cheese table, you know? But there are, you know, there's every market event you go to, there's always a couple panels that really get a cool conversation going. And imagine if the entire event was just those and there was, like, a little more production value. You'd have something like the future of home conference, for example. Anyway, I'm all for shaking up the traditional model for design events. I think designers are really hungry for it. They like provocative ideas on stage, they like exciting things, and so more power to them.
- [15:39]
Dennis Scully
I'm so glad that you said that, because I think the part about designers being really hungry for it. I did a panel last year at Legends, and honestly, it turned into just this great big cathartic session with a lot of designers in the room. Yes. It was a group therapy session in a lot of ways. And all the designers who were on stage very kindly opened up about the real struggles. And it wasn't about someone's book or it wasn't about some particular project. It was the real nitty gritty of what everybody was experiencing. And honestly, to your point, if an event could be a lot more panels or discussions like that, I think people would go out of their way to participate in it.
- [16:21]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, real dollar numbers on stage would be great, too. Not to toot our own horn here, but Caitlin, our editor in chief, did a great event about design photography that had, like, some real costs set on stage and there were some wide eyes in the audience.
- [16:34]
Dennis Scully
Exactly.
- [16:35]
Fred Nicholas
I don't know. Just realness, I think, is the watchword.
- [16:38]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. No, no, no. And honestly, I think that's exactly what Becky wants. So stay tuned, because I think that's the direction that this is going to move in. It'll be really interesting to see. And obviously, as you said, everybody is looking for ways to support the community that has just gone through so much. And we know that the rebuilding process is going to take quite a while. So everybody wants to come together and I think this is going to be a really meaningful event. So I'm looking forward to it and I hope we get to participate in it. All right, next up, Fred, Wait. What? Daniel Lalonde steps down. This is big.
- [17:20]
Fred Nicholas
Yes. Last week, Floss, BNB Italia Group, say that three times fast, announced that Daniel Lalonde, the CEO, is no longer at the company's helm. In his place, former Floss CEO Piero Gandini was named executive chairman. Lalonde, meanwhile, will remain on the group's board. Change at the top for the Floss BNB Italia Group. Interesting one. Daniel Lond was of course a podcast guest. What'd you make of this, Dennis?
- [17:43]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. A podcast guest who. We forced him to say that he was basically trying to make this the LVMH of the home world. Right.
- [17:52]
Fred Nicholas
I don't think we forced him. That became like their tagline. They had that on their website.
- [17:55]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I think we really wanted him to lean into that and I think he did. And now, I don't know, maybe they're leaning out of that. I don't know. Is that what we're to read from this, do you think?
- [18:07]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, just to sort of like briefly catch people up. So the Flosspy and Vitalia Group used to be called Design Holding. What it is is a roll up of a bunch of mostly European luxury furniture companies. I think they came together in 2017, 2018. Huge private equity investment behind it. It was a collaboration between the CAR and Invest Industrial, which are these two. Just giant PE firms with tons and tons of money. The thesis behind it was if you take all these heritage brands like BNB Italia, Floss, there's lots more. Arclineal, Max Alto, Azucena, if you put them all under, forgive my pronunciation on all of those. But anyway, if you put all of them under one umbrella, you get these kind of operational efficiencies. You get this big house of brands like lvmh, for example, of luxury home brands, again, mostly European, and conquer the world with that conc. So that was the thesis behind it. And Daniel Lalonde was a former LVMH executive. He was a very polished, thoughtful executive. You could imagine them taking the company public, him being the face of it. And that, I think, at least was the rumor of what the thesis behind hiring him putting this all Together was so with him either stepping down or being pushed out, it's not clear exactly what happened. At the very least, I think that thesis has to be called into question a little bit. I don't know what your read on this. The floss B&B Italian group Kremlinology is here to.
- [19:29]
Dennis Scully
Well, exactly. And I think at the time when this big roll up was announced and they were going to bring them all under one roof, I think there were more than a handful of skeptics and anyone who's ever worked with all of these brands thought it was going to be pretty difficult to bring them all together, have them share space and get along and not just argue about what the espresso maker was going to be and some of the many things that they've bickered about in the past. And even Daniel Lalonde sort of nodded to say that yes, this probably was a pretty monumental undertaking to try and get all these people on the same page. He also though was very resistant to the American model of designers driving business at this, this scale of the, of the market at this price point. And I can't imagine that isn't also part of what kind of trips this company up a little bit. I don't know your thoughts?
- [20:34]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, I mean I, I don't think he was like resistant to designers, but he was resistant to giving trade pricing I think is probably, probably more resistant.
- [20:41]
Dennis Scully
To them making a living at his stores.
- [20:45]
Fred Nicholas
That's, that's maybe a little too strong. But, but yeah, I mean who likes to give away market margin? I do think that is a common problem that European brands run into. Is that over there, there isn't this model of giving a trade discount or as much of a trade discount and you come over here, you think you can go direct to consumers. But of course so many more high end consumers here have a designer and that becomes sort of a stumbling block they try and figure out. I mean to be clear, they have grown in the U.S. it's not like their numbers haven't gone up here. But it doesn't seem like this group has had the crazy runaway success over the past couple years. I was look at some of their financials. They're a European company so they're required to disclose more. They're not publicly traded. But in Europe there are different laws around that. They're not having a great 2024. I don't know if you looked at these numbers Dennis, but revenue was down 10% in the first quarter. It's gotten a little bit better. But it's still down over 20, 23. EBITDA is down 10%. It does not seem like this plan is going great this year. Maybe Daniel leaving is a little bit of a we need somebody else to turn these numbers around. Maybe we don't need to go public. I don't know what you made of the.
- [21:52]
Dennis Scully
Listen, it's very challenging in Europe right now in general. And so I'm not surprised by these numbers. I think that, as you say, I don't know how much time they were really giving this model to work. I don't know what the patience level was. It's been very challenging for the public markets. IPOs were down dramatically in the past few years. And so with weak numbers is not when you want to come public. If they were planning to come public, I can't imagine that that's in the cards anytime soon.
- [22:30]
Fred Nicholas
I should say the closest competitor that you can compare them to is this company called Dexelence that used to be called Italian Design Brands. Very similar idea. Roll up a bunch of heritage brands. They actually did go public last year and they're down 25%. Since the stock is down 25%, so numbers are going down. Your closest comparison is down 25%. That's certainly a vote against this idea of becoming the LVMH of home and going public. At the very least, that plan probably is on pause. And so I'm really curious to see what happens next because as you said, this company started in 2017, 2018. Usually PE firms are looking at a 10 year horizon. We're coming up on that pretty quickly. What happens next for this group of brands care to speculate?
- [23:10]
Dennis Scully
Well, if they follow their standard playbook, we rolled them up and now let's break them apart. Let's sell them off and see what are the most valuable assets. And honestly, it's hard to imagine that they don't want to have BNB Italia become a standalone brand again, but we'll see. I don't know. I mean, I think some of the brands increased in value as a result of being together, but it's hard for me to imagine they don't break these up.
- [23:38]
Fred Nicholas
All right, well, we'll keep an eye on it.
- [23:40]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, stay tuned for that. I think we're going to know soon and perhaps we'll reach out to Daniel and see if he has any thoughts that he wants to share with us. Next up, we're going to talk about Estee Lauder's new scent investment. In a story for Fast Company last week, Elizabeth Segren wrote about why Estee Lauder invested in a startup that wants to transform home fragrances by addressing a condition called olfactory blindness. I was. I was in an Uber car the other day that had so many scents in it that I think I experienced olfactory blindness, actually, and. And stumbled my way through the rest of the evening.
- [24:19]
Fred Nicholas
Little willful olfactory blindness there on your part.
- [24:22]
Caitlin Peterson
Yeah.
- [24:23]
Fred Nicholas
This is interesting. I mean, I do think home fragrances are such an interesting little corner of the market. It's grown so much. I think the article pointed out that it's a $24 billion global market. I do think, just anecdotally, who hasn't had 100 candles sent to them randomly over the past four or five years? I think it's an area of growth in the industry. And so I understand why Estee Lauder is investing in this kind of interest, kind of wacky new technology. Should we try and explain what this technology is? It's hard to understand, frankly. I don't know if you have a clear grip on it, Dennis.
- [24:56]
Dennis Scully
Well, that's the thing. So it's a new technology called Exude. Yes.
- [25:02]
Fred Nicholas
Thank you for braving that pronunciation. It's ex U U D. Yeah.
- [25:07]
Dennis Scully
And it's sort of a pod, a bead, and it sort of slowly, over time, releases the scent. I mean, is that the understanding that you have?
- [25:18]
Fred Nicholas
Yes, that is the deep understand understanding I have of Exude. Yes. I think the idea is that, as you pointed out in the intro, I think you tune out scents pretty quickly is what the thesis is. But if you vary the amount of scent that is kind of in the air, I think the idea is that you get around this condition, olfactory blindness, to sort of create a more pervasive sense of the scent. Now, I guess my question is, is that desirable? Do you want that? Or is it a good thing to get around that olfactory blindness and always be smelling ascent? I kind of feel like there's something nice about sort of perceiving a scent quickly, having that shape, your perception of a space that you're in, and then moving on to just being in the space as opposed to constantly smelling it. But I don't know, Dennis, what's your perception of olfactory blindness as an impediment to your enjoyment of an interior?
- [26:09]
Dennis Scully
Well, it's interesting speaking to so many designers, and I know that so many big luxury retail brands are so focused on their scent, what they want you to experience, the moment that you cross the threshold, and it seems right. It seems as if it's so Important to capture you in that very first moment. You catch a whiff of something and then it sets the tone for what the rest of the experience is going to be like. I remember Tom Kligerman, when he came on the show, talked about doing a big presentation for one of his clients who was doing some kind of Adirondack cabin or something. He was so proud that he had this pine scent in the conference room.
- [26:52]
Fred Nicholas
He wanted a scent for it. He came up with a custom scent for what he wanted the project to evoke, which I thought was clever, but.
- [26:57]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he thought that that sealed the deal in having that. And so I think it often can. Designers actually are hugely focused on this. What I'm surprised about is you think of all the candles and all the scent sticks and all the many products that Estee Lauder makes. It seems like this new investment would sort of get rid of all of that and just replace everything that they've made. I don't know. This seems like huge brand destruction for them in some way.
- [27:29]
Fred Nicholas
Which is innovators dilemma.
- [27:31]
Dennis Scully
Exactly.
- [27:31]
Fred Nicholas
They have to disrupt themselves in the homesense space, I think is what this is amounting to.
- [27:37]
Dennis Scully
Well, that seems to be what's at the heart of it, but it's a huge industry and they're obviously very keen to be investing in it. I just, I wonder if it's going to become a part of every project going forward. Next up, some sad news to share. Last week, New York designer Amy Lau passed away at the age of 56 following a battle with cancer. Her impact was felt in nearly every corner of the industry, along with completing countless residential and commercial projects. At the helm of her firm, she was the co founder of the first edition of Design Miami, became the first designer to exhibit at New York's Ceylon and Art Design Fair, and opened her own gallery in the New York Design center just last year. Her passing provoked an outpouring of grief and admiration from the design community, summed up well by a statement posted by her firm. A true visionary and an inspiration, Amy dedicated her life to creating warm and inviting spaces, touching countless lives. With her passion and unique style, we will forever cherish her legacy and the impact she made in the design world.
- [28:47]
Fred Nicholas
Yeah, this was a really hard one. I mean, I didn't know Amy particularly well, but every time I met with her, she's had such incredible, warm, welcoming energy. It's been really sweet to see all the tributes her on social media. I don't think there was a single person in the New York design world who didn't and absolutely love her and love her work and love interacting with her. And I was just really interested to see all this involvement she had in the art world and sort of bringing art and design together. She's clearly very instrumental in that. This is just a real heartbreaker.
- [29:19]
Dennis Scully
Absolutely. And I'm gonna try not to get emotional. I've known Amy for more than 20 years and she was just such an incredibly bright figure. I Remember back in 2015, there was a wonderful panel discussion that she did at the New York School of Interior Design with Vladimir Kagan, with whom she was a close collaborator. And they had such a fun, humorous, chatty relationship. And you really saw Vladimir accused her of being overthinking everything and she said, no, you're the one. And there was a lot of back and forth. And he talked about how she challenged him in ways that he never would have challenged himself. And so many vendors and people that Amy worked with talked about that that she just pushed you in a lot of directions that you might not have gone on your own.
- [30:17]
Fred Nicholas
She had a spark.
- [30:18]
Dennis Scully
Exactly. And she was so kind to come to so many things. She was a great supporter of the future of home. When I reached out to her her to be a brand ambassador for the future of home, when we were first launching it, she said, oh my gosh, absolutely. I'll be there and do whatever you need. She was incredibly generous and I was enormously fond of her. All right, that's it for the news. But there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com including a profile of a rug designer making waves in the trade. And the coolest smart home tech debuts at ces. We'll be back in a minute, but first a quick break with Anthem Smart Showering only from Kohler. You can design a showering escape that commands up to 12 water outlets, supports custom lighting environments to match any mood, and allows for three levels of soothing steam set to music from personal playlists. Every moment asks the user to imagine. And when you take a shower, where does your shower take you? Explore Anthem+ smart showering@kohler.com Showers for over 20 years, LaloyLoy has made its name in home, textiles and customer service. Members of the trade have dedicated laloy sales representatives to answer their needs with an easy to use website samples, fast shipping from the loy's warehouse, access to exclusive trade only collections and showrooms across the country. Learn more@laloirugs.com that's L O L O I rugs.com for an inside look at all things Laloy. Follow Lloyd on Instagram and TikTok. And we're back. I'm joined now by my colleague, business of Home's managing editor, Hayley Chouinard. Haley Hailey, thanks so much for being on the show.
- [32:16]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah, so glad to be here.
- [32:17]
Dennis Scully
So glad to have you and you just returning from Germany and the big heimtextil show, which we're eager to hear all about. Tell us first to refresh people's memory what the show is and really who comes to this great big trade show.
- [32:36]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah, so Heim Textel is a massive fair in Frankfurt. Like you said, it happens every January and it's is really anything textile. So they have like your base fibers and yarn. They have this really massive rug and carpet exhibition now they do, you know, more traditional fabrics and you'll see a lot of emerging technologies. So like Canon, for the past two years the printing company has had these giant printers, live printing, wallpaper, murals and then cutting it and rolling it and. Yeah, so it's really vast in what you can see and they spend a lot of floor space and thought on what's next, I would say.
- [33:20]
Dennis Scully
So is it a show that a lot of interior designers go to or do you feel like it's more people that are working in the textile industry and who are looking for different partnerships and relationships?
- [33:33]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah, traditionally not designer focused. It would be more like probably buyers from Target going there to look at where they're sourcing their, their, their in house bedding or rugs and that sort of a thing. And yeah, company big, I would say bigger buyers.
- [33:52]
Dennis Scully
So was there a, was there an overall mood or look or feel that they were trying to present this year? Was there a big statement being made?
- [34:01]
Hayley Chouinard
I think the carpet and rug hall really was a must see this year. It grew. I think they said they tripled their number of exhibitors. I think we've seen that a lot in the US Right. Of the category of rugs just exploding. It feels like every week you get a pitch about like a new rug brand. It was like, yes, this is not unique to the us this is globally. Rugs are really having such a big, a big boom.
- [34:24]
Dennis Scully
Did anyone offer any insight as to why rugs have become such a big category?
- [34:29]
Hayley Chouinard
I don't know. I mean, I think there's been such a movement towards this idea of, I mean, not necessarily bespoke but like wanting something that looks original or looks that's unique to your home. And, and I mean especially, I mean there were all of These, you know, beautiful Indian rug companies that were there and people want, I think, more of that feeling of authenticity than maybe they can get when they go to a home goods or something like that and just like grab something like they, they want to. I, I think there's such a story to be told with rugs. So I, I think they've really. The team behind Heim Textile, I think they, they noticed where that was going and I think that was really smart.
- [35:06]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, I mean they seem to have, as you say, had their finger in the air a little bit and saw that that was big. And it sounds like attendance was up and lots of people were there for it. I wonder. So thinking about some of the big things that felt different this year versus other years that you've been there in the past, it certainly sounds like the Italians had a bigger presence than in the past. Yes.
- [35:31]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah. So to your earlier point, point. Heimtextel hasn't traditionally been designy, I would say, for lack of a more official word, there is design minded, content. But it's not really ever been trying to capture the same sort of audience as a salon in Immobil or M and O in Paris or anything like that. So this year they kind of threw everybody a curveball and they had these two very design centric installations, one by Alcova Milano and then the other by Patricia Urquhola. They had Alcova, the team behind Alcova, Valentina Cuffi and Joseph Grema, take over their trend space, which has been kind of the crown jewel, I would say, of Heim Textile over the past few years. And it was, I think everybody was, you know, just had no idea what they would do. Right. Cause they're pretty experimental and they're. For those who don't know, they usually take over these kind of interesting architectural space is usually like a little on the decrepit side, I would say, or seen better days. But they take it and they fill it with beautiful objects and furniture and really make you think in a different way. And one thing that they kind of pointed out, you could take tours with Valentina Ciufi and Joseph Grema and they talked about the idea that textiles are one of the oldest forms of technology that we have. Like the craft of textile making was one of the first ways that we were innovative as a species and figured out how to weave and how to make these fabrics. And I thought that was really beautiful. And yeah, it was like I said, I've still been thinking about it like a week later. And then that was in Hall 3, and then way over in Hall 12, Patricia Urquiola had this really kind of otherworldly, colorful installation that she did called Among Us. It was these lovely ombre carpets on these big layers of foam so your feet squished down on the carpet. Like, it was just very tactile. And she had these upholstered sculptures that you could sit on that were beautiful, and wall hangings that were just kind of, you know, suspended from the massive conference hall ceilings. It was really lovely and thoughtful, and I think that's really what Patricia was hoping to create, was a destination in this space that really celebrated the art of textiles within this larger, fair environment.
- [38:03]
Dennis Scully
I always get the sense that heimtextil is a show that's all about the future. And you were talking earlier about the giant Canon printers going and showing us digital printing in a big way. Did it seem like there were new, meaningful innovations? Like, what was the. What was the new cool thing coming out of the world of digital printing?
- [38:26]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah, so, yes, the Canon machines were very cool. And they had basically this like, display where you could take different samples of different materials that they had printed on. So it was like Lyocell and these kind of things. Because, I mean, at least in my mind, I think of digital printing as very like, on a single source material. Right. Like, you think of cotton or something like that, you don't really think of, like, more sophisticated fabrics and digital printing. I mean, I don't think maybe that's naive of me, but. So they. They had that just like right there where you could take it and you could feel it and you could see the quality of the print, which was really interesting. And then in another area of the show, they had this brand, Cornet Digital, which is based in Israel, and they sell a lot of printers worldwide. But then they also are kind of moving into their own collections. So they had their first furniture collection with another Israeli brand called Niso Furniture, and they had their booth furnished with it, and it was so cool. And I mean, they had leather that they had printed on and these like, boucle kind of material that, I mean, and they have booklets of different. I mean, they had alpaca wool and like a gauze kind of material, and they use this pigment based dye and it just kind of sits really right on top of it. And it's fascinating and. And it looks really good, huh? And, yeah, and I mean, there's a sustainability factor to it as well, where they aren't using water in their process. I mean, in, you know, traditional textile Making, you're using water in the dyeing and then you have to rinse at the end and like all this stuff. So they were very focused on the print on demand aspect where you're not, you know, printing all of this stuff that then maybe doesn't sell and gets. Ends up not being used. Or you're using all of these resources to make stuff that might not get used.
- [40:16]
Dennis Scully
Which is often a big theme at Heim Textile is the whole discussion around the carbon footprint and sustainability. Although I understand this year not quite as big a theme or a presence. But you tell me.
- [40:29]
Hayley Chouinard
Yes, several of us in my press group, we were kind of walking around looking for the sustainability pavilion before we realized that there wasn't one this year. Which was really surprising because last year they had this incredible exhibit by Franklin Till, the British Futurist design agency that talked a lot about all these regenerative kind of textiles. I mean, they had like sequins grown from algae and like all this sort of really innovative. I mean, it wasn't necessarily stuff that was ready for market, but it was the, the ideas right. Were all there. And so, yeah, they, they didn't do that this year and I'm not really sure why. I sat with somebody from the Heim textile team at dinner one night and she seemed really surprised, frankly, that we noticed. But yeah, no dedicated sustainability space, which, yes, personally being a sustainability nerd, I was a little bummed about.
- [41:21]
Dennis Scully
But otherwise it sounds like a very forward looking show in general. Yes.
- [41:26]
Hayley Chouinard
Yeah, no, there was so much and it's so dense. It's kind of crazy that it's only a three day fair because there's just so much to really see and take in that you could definitely spend five days, days easily just wandering. But yeah, I'm really glad that I got to go back and that I got to kind of see this new era that maybe they're moving into.
- [41:47]
Dennis Scully
Fantastic. Well, Haley, thanks so much for the recap. I'm so glad that you could join us on the Thursday show. Thank you.
- [41:53]
Hayley Chouinard
Always great to come on the Thursday show. I'm happy to be here.
- [42:00]
Dennis Scully
I am joined now by BOH editor in chief, Caitlin Peterson. Kaitlin, welcome to the show.
- [42:07]
Caitlin Peterson
Thanks, Dennis. Great to be here.
- [42:09]
Dennis Scully
Welcome back from London. Paris, many ports of exotic call. I'm eager to talk about it all with you. I caught a glimpse of you on a Paris street corner ever so briefly and we shared a little bit of time at the crazy, crowded Pollock Weitzner party. But otherwise I didn't get to catch up with you a lot. So. So let's start with Paris. And I won't put you in the position of having to come up with one magical word to describe the whole vibe over there, but tell me what your sense was of how people were feeling on the ground.
- [42:46]
Caitlin Peterson
I think the energy at the show this year was enthusiastic. It was eager, it was excited. I mean, Paris is my favorite way to start the year. Who doesn't love Paris? I think everywhere you went, people were so excited to soak it all in, discover new things, see as much as they could. It felt great. What did you think? How was it for you? What was the energy like on the street for you?
- [43:13]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, I always love bumping into people who are there for the first time and they're so excited and wide eyed to see everything and can't believe that they're getting to have this experience. And we talked a little bit before going over about how ego especially eager people were to see one another after the terrible fires in la. There was so much of the LA community that we knew was going to be on the ground in Paris and we were eager to come together and just be with one another. But I completely agree with you. There's an infectious enthusiasm and excitement about starting the year this way and I'm always excited to be there. As cold as it is.
- [43:56]
Caitlin Peterson
As cold as it is, you feel like in your bones cold.
- [43:59]
Dennis Scully
Well, the lack of sun is something that one has to adjust to.
- [44:03]
Caitlin Peterson
It was sunny in London on Tuesday as I was preparing to leave and I was like, oh, I've seen this sun in two weeks in Europe. What's funny, you know, you mentioned first timers and I think there were so many first timers at the show this year. I thought that was so interesting. There are so many people who had heard that Deco off and Maison and Abze are super cool. They wanted to figure it out and they were sort of boots on the ground like, all right, so how do I walk this show? What do I do? How do I get in on all the great discoveries here?
- [44:33]
Dennis Scully
I mean, I think it was very well attended. I think people, as you say, heard how fun and exciting it is and made the trip. And what I love is when whole offices come over. I spent some time with a design firm in Portland and the whole group seemed to all be there and just sharing the experience together. And. And I got the sense that for many firms this was their treat, this was their big adventure and a reward for, as you've suggested, Perhaps a challenging 2024 for a lot of people, right?
- [45:05]
Caitlin Peterson
Absolutely.
- [45:06]
Dennis Scully
So let's talk about some of the buzz and some of the big things that people were talking about while they were going around and what really stood out for people.
- [45:17]
Caitlin Peterson
I think we've got to start the conversation with Priority Fray. I just. Full stop. They always have a stellar presentation. I mean, usually they're sort of presenting their fabrics one by one in this extraordinary sort of moment for the design industry. I don't know about you, but I think this year they outdid themselves. They rented the Hotel de Guise and created this immersive installation showcasing their new collection, which was all inspired by deserts from around the world. I feel like whenever you ran into people on the street and started talking about, what did you like? What have you seen? What was the thing that was most exciting to you? Everyone started with Pierre Frey. And so I think that's worth shouting out. You were there too. What did you think?
- [45:55]
Dennis Scully
I completely agree. And you know, and it's funny because Patrick was taking the lovely Mrs. Scully and me around. I said that it was funny when people first heard that he wasn't going to be doing his usual presentation. Right. People were so concerned and up in arms and. What do you mean? That's one of the highlights of. But he. The whole team obviously wanted to do something very different. And as he talked about, they don't do show houses in Paris. So what if we took this space and basically created a show house in this hilariously dilapidated building that was completely falling apart.
- [46:31]
Caitlin Peterson
Perfect, right? And I think perfect with their collection. There was the one room where there was this insane kind of rust colored water stain on the ceiling, and it was perfect. You couldn't have art directed it better than sort of this crumbling shell and, you know, this beautiful use of their fabrics inside.
- [46:49]
Dennis Scully
What else sort of made a big impression on people did you find?
- [46:52]
Caitlin Peterson
I went to a wonderful dinner at Feille Boiserie out in the 16th arrondissement. And, you know, it's this magical repository of some of the most extraordinary rooms and paneling and boiserie from the last several hundred years. The company uses all of those. You could buy an antique room. You can work with them to create a reproduction. You can work with them to kind of study the greatness of the past and build something that is sort of extraordinary for today. They were celebrating a big anniversary. They're also celebrating that they're about to move into the D and D building this spring.
- [47:27]
Dennis Scully
Fingers crossed.
- [47:28]
Caitlin Peterson
Fingers crossed. A lot of space, too.
- [47:32]
Dennis Scully
But they.
- [47:32]
Caitlin Peterson
They hosted a dinner that sort of. It was magical. It was so immersive. And I think, you know, it was a great mix of designers and kind of industry folks and press. And it's a good example to me of, I think, what makes sort of some of this entertaining in Paris so special, really creating these moments that you can't replicate in settings that are sort of beyond your wildest imagination. And then you're seated next to some really interesting folks at dinner that you wouldn't have met otherwise. And you learn a lot more about how they work or the industry as a whole, or just kind of something exciting that's on their radar. That was maybe kind of the sparkling jewel box evening of the trip for me, but there were so many events like that that I heard about, that I saw on Instagram, and that I think make a deco off so special. While we're talking about parties, I mean, you hosted a standing room only. I could hear it from down the block as I was walking up, kind of event with Pollock and Weitzner. I mean, I think that's worth celebrating here too. Cause that was a really fun time.
- [48:38]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, that was a great event, and I'm so thrilled that so many people were able to turn out for that. It was really quite fun to cram so many people into that apartment. I hope we didn't disturb others in the building with that, but. But that was a great experience. What else jumped out at you?
- [49:00]
Caitlin Peterson
I think one thing. There's a lot to say in terms of the product itself, in terms of trends, colors, textures, where there's demand in the industry. But one thing that struck me in a lot of presentations of fabrics was this interesting polarization into to kind of sides of the way that we talk about performance fabric. Also, I took this really serious. I went from parties to performance fabric, but I think more brands than ever were showing interesting, innovative, elevated performance fibers, this kind of indoor, outdoor, different ways of using treatments and plastics to create something durable, lasting. But that feels cool. That's interesting. That was really exciting from kind of a technological, like, innovation perspective, I think. On the other hand, there were just as many people who were saying, why do you need that? Wool is the original performance fabric. And really kind of moving away from.
- [50:01]
Dennis Scully
Those are my people.
- [50:01]
Caitlin Peterson
Caitlin, you know what I felt? I think maybe the reason that I picked up on it so strongly this year was that I felt the real push and pull of going in one showroom where someone says, you know, here was our vision. People have kids and dogs, and, you know, you're gonna have sticky toffee pudding in your sofa. And then, you know, the other campus said, like, who needs that? You know, let's go back to, like, raw fiber. It's kind of the original performance. And, you know, you could ping pong back and forth between them and walk out. A true believer in both places. I think there is such interesting innovation happening kind of on both sides. And what struck me, I think, was that there wasn't anybody sort of lingering in the middle anymore.
- [50:45]
Dennis Scully
So I didn't get over to Maison Objet. But, I mean, I know that Caroline Biggs was there, and it sounds like she had some thoughts of what she saw.
- [50:54]
Caitlin Peterson
Absolutely. So I checked in with her throughout the show, and I think she wouldn't toot her own horn this way, so I'm gonna do it. She had a great surrealism story in our print issue about six months ago, and I always joke that we should have a section on the site called Caroline Biggs told you'd so, because surrealism was huge at Maison and Aberge this year. The entire kind of theme for the fair was called surreality. The Maison Anduberge designer of the year was Faye Toogood, and she did an exhibit called Womanifesto. So, like, woman and Manifesto, God love it. But it was this very, like, landscape driven retrospective. It was sort of an installation looking back at at an array of her archival works. But that was very kind of trippy, surrealism inspired. They also had sort of a what's new in Decor installation that featured a ton of surrealist motifs, a lot of stuff from Jonathan Adler, Cece Tavis, a staircase sculpture by Norm Architects. Kind of this omnipresent force moving through the design industry. She really took note of that and said, wow, this is definitely showing up here. She also said sustainability was actually a really important conversation at the show, which I think is great because I didn't have that many conversations about sustainability at Paris Deco Off. And so I'm glad that at least that was sort of in the mix and in the conversations at sort of some of the bigger exhibitions at Maison and Hampshell.
- [52:24]
Dennis Scully
Okay, let's get into brands that you saw and what really made a splash and an impact. This is gonna be a rapid fire round because we got a lot to get through.
- [52:35]
Caitlin Peterson
There was so much that I can't shut up about, to be honest. I will say that one of the most exciting moments for me was I was in the Schumacher showroom on Thursday morning, and I was the first person to see a beautiful tapestry get unrolled. It's based on an amazing Flemish design document, and they went to an amazing American mill, one of the few that's still able to do this technique and have really replicated it. It was also amazing to be in the showroom with everyone from the brand as they gasped seeing it for the first time. It was really fun. Samuel and Sons had a great, colorful, exuberant collaboration with the British passementary artist Elizabeth Ashdown. It's called the Kaleidoscope Collection. There is a colorway that's totally bonkers in a way that's really fun. There's also some more muted options. But I think just the way that she's playing with traditional form, shapes, techniques and motifs and then making them a little more playful, updating them for today, I think the artistry of that was just mind blowing. Karen Robert at Osabri debuted the Alchemy collection. It was amazing. It was also her first time doing kind of her own pop up. She partnered with Pagani Studio, a Brooklyn lighting brand, and they had their own kind of standalone pop up for the first time. She had a collection called the Alchemy Collection of beautiful sort of metal leaf wallpapers. She also, I think, is a great proof point that, you know, popping up in Paris can really transform your business. I know she got a lot of leads for some international representation, but I think there's also so much international opportunity that maybe brands aren't thinking about when they show up at Deco off for the first time.
- [54:15]
Dennis Scully
Yeah. And I think, as you and I have talked about in the past, I think people are in just such a different mindset when they're over there in Paris.
- [54:22]
Caitlin Peterson
It doesn't matter if you've met them in America before, you want to meet them in Paris.
- [54:26]
Dennis Scully
It's a transformational experience. Anyone who's on the fence about it, I think you and I both feel the same way. Get there, get in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So who else stood out in your mind?
- [54:36]
Caitlin Peterson
I loved my appointment at Rubelli. They hired the kind of avant garde design studio, Forma Fantasma to oversee their creative direction in 2023. And I think seeing their sort of continued influence on this year's debuts was maybe one of the most show stopping moments for me. It's like everything luxurious that you've always loved about Rubelli, but it's also kind of weird and playful and joyous and irreverent. It was in color. It was like the pitch perfect encapsulation to me of the colors that we were seeing kind of all throughout the show. Emerge form of Phantasma. Like we Wrote about them in the magazine years ago for making furniture out of recycled office trash. And so it's an interesting pick. It's this really kind of funky studio. And I think that energy, paired with sort of the tradition and the rigor of Rebelli is a really exciting kind of meld Clash End result. Liberty had 150th anniversary installation that just like eye candy, if you love classically British design. Shawn Leffers, the California designer, did a kind of a pop up of some of his new fabrics that will be coming to a Niedler Faucher showroom near you. CMO Paris. Kind of a funky natural wall coverings company had this wall covering installed on a wall in their showroom that was literally just like pressed water lilies, like giant ones, bigger than a dinner plate on the wall, kind of this. They looked really embossed and interesting, and it was just graphic and fun. And then they're like, no, that's actually the plant. That is the plant on the wall, like in a flower press. A really big flower press. I thought that was show stopping. And De Gournay, you know, I took some designers along on my press appointments for an afternoon. De Gournay was one of our stops. And I think it was the highlight of the tour for a lot of them. They have a new collection inspired by the works of the couturier Paul Poiret. But they also had this showstopper pattern. It's hand painted birds and flowers on silk, but it's called Pietra dura. And it's designed to look like kind of a marble inlaid pattern. And so when you look up close, it's all these hand painted kind of imperfect whorls of marble. And it was a beautiful kind of on the roll. And then you saw it installed in their showroom sort of behind their little spirally stairc. And it was just everything. It was just amazing. And so that was a real showstopper for me. Last person that I was so excited to meet was a woman named Tigger hall from Nine Muses. She's an Australian textile brand. It's her first time exhibiting at Deco Off. I think she said she's the first Australian to exhibit at Deco off. And she just has a wonderful, colorful collection. Her brand is almost 10 years old, so she has a very deep collection to kind of debut for the first time with. But it's all based on her paintings. And I think what I love about her is that she's digitally printed. So she's truly print on demand, which I think has Made her fearless about the colors that she puts in her book. Like, if no one buys it, who cares? We won't print it. But it made for a really incredible presentation and it allows for sort of a commitment to kind of funky colorways that was actually just truly delightful in the Showrunner room. So she. I was so excited to meet her, to see her brand for the first time, and to kind of learn more about her business in Australia. Dennis, what were your highlights? I want to know what caught your. Ooh, I'm using a Thursday show word. I want to know what caught your eye. Deco Off.
- [58:10]
Dennis Scully
Well, I mean, as we were saying earlier, I mean, there's something so magical about the Paris background for any event, right? So, I mean, you can go to Holly Hunt in New York and be impressed to be sure, or you can go to the Hotel Crillon and see one of the most fun presentations that Holly Hunt does. There's a great team that does the presentation there and it was brilliantly done. And you saw the new fabric collections and you saw the new wall covering collections and that was endlessly fun and really enjoyable. You also get the privilege of seeing the Dadar presentation with Katharina and Ra Fabrizio, who again, funny, cute, fun together. They had great names for all their textiles this year. The names were as memorable as the textiles themselves. They were really very fun. And I think also the Invisible collection does a brilliant installation at Fayo which combines all of these several hundred year old installations with the very contemporary looking furniture that they bring into the display. So that's always very fun. Watts, an English company that comes over does a Paris pop up and always has fun things on display. Another one that is showing a heritage brand, but in a very contemporary way. So, I mean, I think everybody who shows their lifts elevates their brand and their presentation. That's why I just think it's so worthwhile. And so, I mean, there are so many that just make you feel like you're seeing something really special. And as you were saying earlier, like you're just having this incredible experience. But enough of us doing an ad for Deco off and coming over. But what I'm curious about, and you spent a lot of time with designers and I love. And so many of the designers that went with you, Caitlin talked about how special it was to actually get to go on appointments with you and they felt like so excited. And I want to talk about the field trips in general because the designers got so much out of that. And I want to talk about it. But let's talk quickly about what your sense was of how people's business was doing. And was there a big feeling of turning the calendar over and now it's 2025 and a different feel to things. What do you think? Or is it post election?
- [60:36]
Caitlin Peterson
I was just going to say you said turning the calendar over. And I was like, actually, I think it started on November, whatever day it was. But I think so many people pinned kind of the turnaround that they're feeling to. A couple days after the election, my phone started ringing. And I had heard that sort of anecdotally before. I think we talked about that a little bit at kind of the end of year show, but I think now definitively everyone I was talking to said I think my clients were just frozen amid all this uncertainty. And kind of having clarity about the future meant that they were ready to get started with their new project. And so I think people were obviously excited to be in Paris, but there were a lot of people I saw who were like, I'm so excited. This is so inspiring. I need that for my client next week. Can I get a memo of this? People were shopping this show in a way that I don't remember in recent years. I felt a resurgence in energy in, you know, projected output. Certainly. It felt like people just had more projects, projects to talk about, more on their plate again, more and a lot that they were really excited to get started. I heard so much. I just had a call. We just had our kickoff call. We're just getting started with design. It really does seem like a time of sort of new beginnings for a lot of people in the industry.
- [61:55]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, I definitely got that sense as well. You got to Paris even before deco off. Right. Because you were taking people around on some pretty remarkable field tr and people were thrilled to. It looked like there were several people that went to all of them. All of them?
- [62:13]
Caitlin Peterson
Yes. We had some almost perfect. I think we had some almost perfect attendance, which was very fun. And new friends, right?
- [62:20]
Dennis Scully
Well, absolutely. And big fans of yours. I mean, they were so excited to get to go around with you. So tell me a little bit of where you went and what you saw.
- [62:29]
Caitlin Peterson
Absolutely. I mean, so our field trip program is for our BoH Insider members. And I think one of the interesting things as we've evolved this field trip program, one of the interesting things is to create access to extraordinary spaces. I think we've spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that as a media brand, sometimes you're able to raise your hand or, you know, send an Email and say, hey, would you open this up to us? Hey, would you lead this tour? Hey, can we see this part of your archive? And if you were one person asking, maybe the answer is no, but somehow there's an opportunity to sort of open some of that up and let people see something kind of in a more intimate way. That's been really exciting. And so I think this year was a really great example of that. The Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Deco off, we took smallish groups of designers to the embroidery workshop Atelier Le Boisson. We went to Feille Boiserie and kind of got a tour from Guillaume of the archive there and sort of some of its extraordinary contents. We went to the straw marquetry studio at Tellier Lison de Caun and got to see, you know, here's the original piece of straw. Here's how we split it open, here's how we make it shiny, here's how we glue it. Just the time, the detail, the kind of hand work. We also, we went out to Sevres, kind of just on the edge of Paris, and walked through every step of the porcelain manufactory that. So you know, how they're making the paste, the turning process to make the shape, how you fire it. I didn't predict this, but after spending all of that time watching people at sort of the peak of their craft, making things with their hands, I think you've kind of. You open up something in your brain to see the fabrics differently, to see the handwork differently, to appreciate construction and feel and. And sort of all of the details that go into what everyone in our industry is creating. And it was just sort of a great, like, mind opener ahead of diving into 50 some odd appointments in two days.
- [64:36]
Dennis Scully
Well, I think for. For so many, that was. That was worth the trip alone.
- [64:43]
Caitlin Peterson
Just a couple people said that they were like, we could be good now. And I was like, no, no, no. The rest of the show is awesome too.
- [64:48]
Dennis Scully
Yeah, no, no, no. But that's the thing. And so, I mean, I know that you want to do even more in the way of field trips and get more people aware of it. I mean, I think it's worth coming to Paris for Caitlin's field trips alone.
- [65:02]
Caitlin Peterson
Oh, by the way, I take credit for them. We have an incredible team behind the scenes making all of that possible too. That wasn't just me, but.
- [65:10]
Dennis Scully
Well, I mean, you're leading the way on all of them. Obviously, the entire beauty boh team behind the scenes puts them together, but I think that it was. This was really Special. And again, so many people got so much out of it. And I think that's sort of a fun segue. Should we talk about London real quick? Because no sooner do you wrap up Paris than you quickly jet over to London for Lauren Hudson's amazing design trip to London. So set it up for us first and kind of tell listeners what this.
- [65:44]
Caitlin Peterson
Trip was to tell Lauren's story for her kind of really quickly. Lauren Hudson has the Wells company, so Rose Cumming in classic cloth. She's also got the Wells Abbott showroom network in Texas and Chicago and coming soon to 200 in New York. So an expanding empire there. The first iteration of Design Destination London was really primarily focused, focused on her brands and the brands she represents in her showroom. Last year it was kind of an invitation only thing. It was about, I believe, 100 designers who came to London sort of take the train up from Paris. You're already in Europe. Come see some of these great British brands, where they live, where they make their home base. This year it was even bigger and better. It was in partnership with Lauren's company, but also Design Center Chelsea harbor and the Grosvenor Estate that runs that owns Pimlico Road. They all kind of came together to host, I think it was about just under 250 designers this year with some of the, with some contributing brand partners. And really everyone there was there by invitation and were some of the top customers of all of those partner brands and there to have just the most extraordinary experience. And each morning you sort of went off to an immersive workshop. I toured Christine Vanderhoord's studio for just exquisite custom rugs and embroideries. And, you know, she was walking us through some of her projects and how they collaborate with clients to create really bespoke textiles. And then in the afternoon we were just, we were in Design Center Chelsea harbor to connect with the showrooms there for some great panels and presentations and then for a big dinner with like 350 people in the central atrium, which was pretty magical. And it was just, you know, it was funny. In her toast at dinner, Lauren Hudson said, you know, basically that, you know, all of the brands who had come together to put on this experience never really get to meet their clients. Right. And so, and you have these people who love your work, who love these brands you represent, who are such enthusiastic supporters in their work of your work. And she really just kind of ended by saying, well, this is all to say thank you, we want you to have an experience with us and just thank you so much for supporting what we do. And it was just a really extraordinary way to discover or just to get to know better a lot of those partner brands.
- [68:11]
Dennis Scully
So come to Paris, Come to London seems to be our big takeaway. Yes, wouldn't you say?
- [68:15]
Caitlin Peterson
I think for anybody questioning the return on investment of a week in Paris, a week in Paris with your whole team, I mean, I think that's amazing. The people who are bringing their teams, I can't imagine not feeling an immense return on making that investment in yourself, in your staff, just to grow and learn and explore and expand together. And I really think. I don't know, I really think that's what both of these experiences provide an opportunity to do.
- [68:44]
Dennis Scully
Okay, I'm glad you're home. Welcome back.
- [68:48]
Caitlin Peterson
My plants aren't.
- [68:48]
Dennis Scully
It's a small miracle, that is, they look flourishing from behind you, from what I can see. But thank you so much for making the time to come on and chat. It's great to catch up.
- [69:01]
Caitlin Peterson
Thank you, Dennis. It's always such a delight to be here.
- [69:09]
Dennis Scully
And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here, but before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on, on in the industry that might have caught our eye. Fred.
- [69:17]
Fred Nicholas
IKEA caught my eye, and not just because I had to go there over the weekend and drag along to two kids in the process, which was fun. IKEA is making a $1 billion investment in recycling across a couple different categories, a couple different companies. You know, ikea, of course, is like the biggest furniture company in the world, and they certainly, you know, churn through a lot of wood. They don't necessarily have to invest in sustainability, and I think that it's admirable that they do. And I think it's cool that they spend, you know, they put their money where their mouth is. I do think we need, you know, I don't doubt their sincerity towards, you know, sustainability. And I think that, like, putting a billion dollars towards recycling furniture is a great idea, especially when you yourself are, you know, a huge producer of fast furniture. So I don't know. The debate over that is complicated, but I do think it's good that IKEA is doing this, and I hope that we're getting closer and closer towards real circularity in the furniture and design industry, and hopefully this billion dollars will go that way. And I myself am obviously guilty of it because I went shopping there. So I'm hopeful that I myself will be recycling some of that furniture in a couple years. Dennis, what caught your eye this week?
- [70:27]
Dennis Scully
Well, you know, we've talked so much on the show about the dupes, Fred. Yeah. And you know, while I was in Paris, I had the privilege and opportunity to visit the Royer apartment. The designer Jean Royer behind the polar bear sofa, which is one of the most copied and imitated pieces of furniture that ever existed. And so it was striking to sit upon the, the actual, the original, the real thing and, and see, and see what it really feels like and how substantial a piece it really is. They, they told me the, the wait time is about 10 months to have one made, so you can't, you can't churn them out very quickly, but it's, but it's well worth it. But it was, it was so interesting to, to learn more about, about Jean Royale who as a designer did something like 1300 projects over the course of his career and there's a, there's a huge archive of his work which I would love to learn more about. But he was, he was really unoriginal and somebody who still continues to make an impact with his, with his work. So I was very impressed with both learning about the French craftsmen who make the pieces today. They have a pop up in, in, in SoHo and, and I think that they're trying to service more designers in the US but, but really interesting again to see one of the most widely knocked off pieces ever to, to spend time with the real thing was. That was very impressive.
- [72:02]
Fred Nicholas
That's super cool. Maybe next year, maybe next year I'll make it over.
- [72:07]
Dennis Scully
I hope so, Fred. I hope so. All right, that's all the time we have today. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings or take a workshop, visit us online@businessofhome.com if you want to get in touch with the show, write to us@podcastusinessofhome.com this episode was produced by Fred Nicholaus and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend and we'll be back with you on Monday.