Flocked fabrics enjoying wider appeal
By Susan M. Andrews -- Furniture Today, February 11, 2007
If you think you know how you feel about flocked fabrics, perhaps you should reconsider.
Flocked fabrics with new looks are finding space on showroom floors and can provide a selling story for furniture retailers during this difficult retail atmosphere, which is burdened with countless look-alike suede fabric and leather sofas that aren't selling.
Although suede fabrics may still be the top dog among upholstery covers, along with leather, flocked fabrics — often called nylon velvets — are gaining momentum for a number of reasons.
Flocked fabric — or nylon velvet if you prefer — has been part of the upholstery scene for a long time, offering a price-sensitive velvet look with great durability and easy cleaning — usually with soap and water. All of that adds up to a high-performance story.
Style innovations
Innovative surface treatments have expanded the appeal of flocked fabrics. In addition to the two primary types of flock — full surface and decorative, in which just certain areas are flocked —producers and converters can print flocks, emboss them, and create sculpted effects with a flock-on-flock technique.
As a result, a flocked fabric can look like any number of other constructions from cut velvet to faux leather — all with the soft hand that consumers continue to demand.
Taken all together, the characteristics of performance, cleanability and flexible styling give flocked fabric a story — and as difficult as it seems to be to sell a sofa at retail these days, having a story to tell would seem to be an absolute "must-have" point.
But there's more going on here than performance and a merchandising hook — flock is going upscale.
The current revival of interest in flocked fabrics was clearly under way at the most recent Decosit and TIP fabric shows in Brussels in early September and the Biennale and Maison & Objet shows in Paris the week before. Lush, highly detailed traditional and modern patterns in flocked constructions were spotted throughout all those shows — in rich colors and on a variety of grounds ranging from cotton and linen to taffeta.
Shortly after, flocked fabrics were featured on the cover and in an extensive photo story titled "Fabulous Flock" in the November 2006 issue of British Homes & Gardens. The consumer design magazine noted that although early flock designs were imitations of damask or velvet for use in formal areas of great European houses, this season's looks are somewhat less formal in feel.
Todd Nifong, vice president of Altizer & Co., which imports a wide range of fabrics for the middle and upper end markets, noticed the new flocks at the European shows and believes the new looks are gaining a foothold across the market.
"We are starting to see more flocks in the marketplace and we are seeing the acceptance of these new flocks beginning to come around," Nifong said. "The flocks that we are currently running are a combination of printed stripes with flocked stripes. I found them at Decosit and we're sourcing them from Spain."
Nifong saw "quite a few different constructions of various flocks during Decosit and, on the whole, those flocks were much more decorative than in the past and constructed with higher quality, which is why I feel they are being accepted by the middle to higher-end as opposed to the flocks of old," he added.
New upscale designs
Pearson Co. was among the first upscale upholstery manufacturers to find an application for a new kind of flocked fabric at the October High Point Market. The upscale company debuted a traditional armchair silhouette dressed in a classic scroll pattern flocked on a linen ground from Covington New York.
At the spring market, Century will be showing a printed paisley full-surface flocked fabric from Microfibres, the largest domestic producer of finished flocked fabrics.
As an upscale producer, Century sells a lot of velvet upholstery. The team there, including Anne Hood, vice president of upholstery fashion, Laurie Reed, creative director, and Sandy Royals, showroom manager and designer, had noticed the growing prevalence of flocked velvets at Showtime in December.
Soon after, Bob Ellsweig, vice president of sales at Microfibres, visited Century and explained the flocking process. Having a better understanding of the process, the team felt more comfortable using it at the higher end, "especially with the popularity of velvets," Hood said. "Flock isn't a faux pas anymore."
Microfibres, a vertically integrated producer, has focused for the past few seasons on offering a wider range of decorative flocked fabrics.
"We have the capability to do a lot of different things," said Mike Czarnecki, senior vice president of sales and marketing. "We do regular flock, flock-on-flock and we can flock on different substrates like cotton and linen and make it very decorative.
"We can fiber dye, piece dye and transfer print all in the same facility," Czarnecki added, "and we're the only domestic producer that can combine printing and flocking."
Czarnecki said Microfibres has had good reaction to its more decorative flocked products recently from such upholstery manufacturers as Klaussner, Bassett, Broyhill and Lee Inds.
Microfibres has extended its line by selling plain linen to go along with the decorative flocked linen.
Another important domestic player is Spectro Coating, which specializes in the sale of greige goods to converters, but also has capacity for fiber dyeing.
Creating opportunities
Another company, FiberLok, produces Lextra flock for applications including heat transfers for textiles and is starting to look for opportunities in the residential furniture arena.
"Woven vinyl fabric furniture graphics have been a great application," said Brown Abrams, president. "Instead of using vinyl, the furniture producer welded Lextra, with high frequency, onto chair backs and found the surface to be more comfortable than vinyl.
"The product is widely used for slot machine chair back graphics. The Fistful of Dollars design won last year's international screen printing association's Golden Image Award — first place in its category for looking and feeling like leather.
"We're focusing on developing ways to apply multicolor flocked products for designers of innovative, cool residential furniture," Abrams said.
One idea would be creating "elbow" patches for upholstered furniture. "It would be an offbeat, retro design effect and actually provide protection for high-wear areas. The abrasion resistance is amazing."
One can't lump all flocked fabrics together because flock is not a separate category — it's a fabric construction, just like jacquards and velvets. Like any fabric construction, it will vary in quality, price and aesthetic appeal according to the design and materials used.
The bonus with flocked fabrics is the broad range of applications and it's new-found ability to span categories from promotional to upper end.
For more information about flocked fabrics and resources, visit www.flock.org.
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