Bloomie's reveals dark side, makes starry pitch
David Perry, Executive Editor -- Furniture Today, March 7, 2004
Leave it to a trendy New York department store to make a bold and surprisingly dark statement in mattress retailing.
Bloomingdale's, which modestly proclaims that it's "like no other store in the world," turns the lights down oh so very low in its bedding department at the company's flagship store on Lexington Avenue in the Big Apple.
When my eyes grew accustomed to the unexpected darkness, I saw what just might be a really bright idea.
A number of bedding retailers have painted clouds and blue skies on their walls and ceilings to give their floors a relaxed, fun feel. That motif suggests that consumers are sleeping on a cloud, or at least in the midst of clouds.
Bloomie's has taken that idea to the next level: It offers an almost-night-dark bedding gallery with a circle of stars twinkling overhead in a clever arrangement of tiny lights. A consumer lying down on the bedding and looking up sees a night sky.
The overall effect is magnified with dark blue carpeting, walls and ceiling.
The dozens of high-endbeds in the department are illuminated in pools of light shimmering down from above. These beds really are in the spotlight. There isn't anything else in the department that draws your eye away from the beds.
The walls are virtually bare, with only a list of vendors — Shifman, Pretty Bed, Masterpiece, Stearns & Foster and Joseph Abboud — at the back of the room.
This is one bedding department where you're not greeted with a sea of white ticking, although most of the covers are in the safe but popular offwhite family. (Yes, the Joseph Abboud line is again an exception.) In the dim light, all of the colors are subdued.
There is a feeling of intimacy and privacy in the department that probably encourages consumers to lie down and try out the beds. Contrast that to the almost clinical brightness in many bedding departments. There, everyone really stands out. Privacy? Not really.
Now I'm not suggesting this sort of approach is right for all bedding retailers. Some store managers probably want to see their sales associates at work on the floor rather than strain to pick up their voices.
I'm exaggerating a bit here, of course. The Bloomie's department isn't that dark. But this is definitely a fresh, intriguing approach. Bedtime approaches. The lights are turned down. The beds beckon as transport vehicles to the welcome world of slumber.
Fun sayings woven into the carpet add to the special atmosphere. One reads: "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
Exactly. This is a dream-filled bedding department.
Opinion columns are available online atwww.furnituretoday.com .
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