Ultimate Accents

When Ray Steele visited the Philippines for the first time earlier this year, he returned full of ideas on how manufacturers and designers there could promote their use of raw materials. He also came back with some ideas on how to incorporate those materials into his own product line.

This month, marketgoers in High Point will see the results of those efforts in the 22-piece Cebu Collection by Ultimate Accents.

 
The accent and occasional items range from a three-tier resin table that looks like a large shiny coconut shell when closed. When you slide the sections open, you can see seeds painstakingly set into the resin that forms the glossy tabletop surfaces. Fibers from the tops of cornstalks make a decorative pattern on the surface.

Another accent piece has red onionskins around the edges and broken glass in the center of the tabletop. Another tiered table in the group has crushed aluminum foil on each of its shelves and bamboo in the center of the top tier. Crushed eggshells form a checkerboard pattern on another tabletop.

Ultimate Accents isn’t the first company to use mixed-media elements from the Philippines. Among the others are Bernhardt, Pulaski and Classics By Casa Bique.

Ultimate Accents’ new line has a chance to interest and excite consumers, particularly if they are told the story behind the materials.

That was Steele’s goal when he first visited the Cebu furniture exhibition in February. With a product line slowly in progress, he returned in July to see where furniture makers got the materials they were using. His stops included a food market where manufacturers collected onionskins, eggshells and the like, and a fish market where they gathered fish scales, another decorative material.

As other companies have learned, these offbeat yet simple elements add what Steele calls a “wow” factor to the designs. But the success in marketing the product, he said, lies in telling the retailer and the consumer the story behind the materials. That can be an even bigger selling point than low prices.

“It’s the art of marketing before the sale,” Steele said. “We just don’t convey to the end user that they are buying something truly unusual, truly one of a kind. It brings value to something rather than just saying it’s an end  table.”  (to add or view public comments click on "Add your Comment" below, or to email Tom directly click here.)