Occasional offerings focus on mixed media, function
By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, February 12, 2007
Las Vegas — Occasional and accent furniture buyers shopping here this week will see a mix of brand new product and top sellers shown in High Point last October.
The mix includes looks and styles that have become familiar to occasional buyers over the years. Mixed-media materials such as metal and glass, hand-painted finishes and solid-wood and veneer combinations are just a sample of what vendors here have to offer.
Others will offer a mix of functionality and coordinated styles and applications with the latest upholstery and home entertainment designs.
Mixed media figures prominently into products offered by World Concepts, whose Monterrey collection features $199 cocktail tables with travertine tile tops and leather trim. Its Mountain Retreat group also has $199 cocktails with faux slate tops.
Padma's Plantation's Moroccan collection has new occasional tables with curved rattan poles and leather binding. Its Las Palmas wing-style lounge chair is made of rattan peel and tropical hardwoods, while its Aruba side chairs feature rattan woven into a herringbone pattern.
Global Views uses mixed media elements in several accent tables, including a $329 version with a nickel-plated metal base and a black granite top. A $1,539 console has a hand-wrought iron frame with an antique gold finish and two black granite shelves.
Form and function also play a role at Magnussen Home. For instance, its Belleau collection has a round side table with open shelves that doubles as a bookcase
Its Aurora group is a modular-style collection with nesting end and cocktail tables that allow the pieces to be placed in a number of configurations tailored to upholstery and other aspects of the room setting.
Classic Flame's Portland electric fireplace has shelf storage for books and other decorative accents on either side of the fireplace unit.
Hand-painted looks appear at Butler Specialty Co. These include a $599 console in its Artists' Originals collection that has a French-inspired, two-tone finish with delicate hand-painted motifs on the doors and edges.
Also in Artists' Originals is a French country-inspired console. The two-tone piece has a hand-painted café noir finish on the legs and stretcher base and a cherry veneer top.
Strong veneer patterns play a role in Butler's Masterpiece collection. One example is a $499 drum table with cherry, walnut and olive ash burl veneers on the sides and door.
Leick Furniture's hand-painted offerings include a $129, two-tone accent table whose cabriole-style legs have a rub-through ivory finish. The solid-birch top has a brown cherry finish.
Hand-painted looks also appear in new pieces at Powell Co., which will be showing 24 new accent items. Much of the emphasis will be on core categories such as bachelors' chests, consoles and mirrors and accent tables.
The lineup also features a Mission-style collection in a black finish. Items include nesting end tables, magazine cabinet table, console and mirror and a combination hall tree and storage bench.
Pulaski is showing 17 new accent pieces with a mix of hand-painted and multi-media elements in its Accentrics and Signature collections. It also will have eight new curios retailing from $239 to $699, plus some new accent items in its Casa Cristina Cantabria collection.
The mix is meant to inspire retailers with items that dress up a room, but that don't take up a lot of space on the sales floor.
"It's a hot category in one of our fastest-growing business segments," said Dallas George, vice president of marketing. "When times are tough, people can splash up a room with an accent piece. We design them for quick sale and quick turns, and the price/value relationship has never been better."
Like other companies, accent and occasional specialists are taking advantage of the extra space created by the new Building B to show off their goods.
This market, accent specialist Ultimate Accents will be in a new 5,000-square-foot showroom in Building A that is next to its former location.
With about twice the space as its original location, the company will show 40 new occasional items, about half of which were introduced in High Point in the fall. The other 20 are pieces being seen for the first time.
The new pieces are helping to round out existing collections, said Ray Steele, vice president of sales.
"This way we can show all the pieces in a collection, and that's really important," Steele said, noting the new space will hold at least 190 pieces, more than twice the 85 to 90 in the former spot.
Master Design also is showing in a larger space, this time in Building B. It will have 21,000 square feet, compared to 11,000 square feet in the World Pavilions and another 5,000 in Building A.
Its strategy is to show occasional items and other product launched at the October High Point Market, product that is now in stock in its warehouse facilities. That means many items will be ready to ship right after the Las Vegas Market.
"The new in-bound goods are what we are stressing," said Joe Elmore, executive vice president of marketing, sales and product development. "Everybody is looking for what will be there today."
The mix will include about 18 occasional groups in a variety of materials and styles, with cocktails retailing between $99 and $199.
Peters-Revington is showing three new groups. They include Sausalito, a transitional group with clean lines that is made with oak veneers and comes in a medium dark finish. Two styles of cocktails on casters retail between $249 and $269.
Adirondack is a mountain lodge-inspired group in ash veneers and a medium finish with cocktails also ranging from $249 to $269.
The third is called Rose Park, a lifestyle contemporary group in a rosewood finish by sister company Silver Furniture. With cocktails retailing at $159, its tables also have shelf storage.
Flexsteel will show two groups already seen in High Point called Woodwind and Symphony. Each has cocktails retailing at $299 and end tables starting at $199.
Symphony is an urban transitional group. It has a metal and glass design with a contrasting steel base and hand-hammered copper tops.
Woodwind is a Neoclassic-inspired transitional group with Hepplewhite-style tapered legs and pegged wood tops with glass inserts.
The company also will show items in its Wrangler Home collection, including a game table, nesting tables and a jewelry armoire.
"The October introductions were so well received, and we are now waiting for our West Coast dealers to see them," said the company's director of advertising and public relations, Justin Mills, noting these and other October introductions will start to hit the sales floors in about a month.
