Hood starts with frame
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, September 29, 2003
Hickory, N.C. — Which comes first: The fabric or the frame?
For Anne Hood, it's frame first, then fabric.
"I like to know what I'm covering," said Hood, vice president of product design for upper-end Highland House, a licensee for the British department store chain, Harrods, and a division of Thomasville Furniture.
"We don't buy a single cover until we know what frames we're going to be covering," she said. "We want to have our floor plans set, and what themes we might decide to play upon, and what's going to be our front setting. Then we'll start pursuing the fabric. We'll say, 'Man, that's perfect.'"
Hood began her furniture career in 1984 as a gallery designer at Henredon and later became director of fabric merchandising. She joined Highland House in 1991 as vice president of merchandising, left for a stint with Michael Thomas and returned to Highland House in 1997 as vice president of merchandising.
Hood draws inspiration from traveling, attending international shows such as Paris, and scanning magazines. "I really enjoy some of the British magazines, like Country Homes & Gardens, things that are a little more European-inspired."
Apparel also is a good source for ideas. "A lot of time for details you do on upholstery, you take little cues from fashion ... little embellishments that they'll do with stitchery." Or she'll look for ways to translate the beading on a handbag onto an upholstery piece.
Most of all, she relies on her own intuition. "What I go on is my gut feel, whether it will be right for our customer and for Highland House," she said. "That's what we try to focus on as a little team here. And this is very much a team effort."
When she's walking around knee-deep in fabrics, with other fabrics pinned to the wall, Hood admits that "it looks like it totally disorganized. But it's organized chaos. When our group goes to New York (fabric shows), we really take good notes and we live by those notes.
"We go back to our notes and the things that have a lot of stars by them will get pulled first. If we loved them at the show, chances are we'll still love them when they come in. We don't knee-jerk and change our minds."
