Furniture Scene: Paula Deen
I was recently having a conversation with Tom Russell, our associate editor, about Universal’s Furniture’s new licensed collection with Savannah, Ga.-based Southern cuisine specialist Paula Deen. The furniture collection debuts in April.
Tom didn’t know too much about Paula and asked about her appeal to consumers.
Paula’s life story is well publicized, from her troubled first marriage, to her struggles with agoraphobia, to her catering business The Bag Lady - started with $200 - which was so popular that it eventually led to her restaurant The Lady & Sons.
I explained to Tom that I’ve become quite familiar with Paula Deen over the last few years. My mother is a devout watcher of the her Emmy Award winning Paula’s Home Cooking and Paula’s Best Dishes on the Food Network.
While jaunting back to West Virginia for the holidays or weekend visits I’ve noticed a gradual accumulation of Paula’s smiling face - and those of her sons - on cookbooks around my mother’s thoughtfully decorated kitchen.
My mother is also no slouch as a maker of home cooked meals and it’s been a treat to sample Paula’s recipes via my mom. For another chef to have earned a spot in my mother’s kitchen is a big deal in the eyes of us kids.
Mom’s inventory of Paula Deen merchandise includes five cookbooks, the biography It Ain’t All about the Cookin and an apron.
(I can say this about Paula’s recipes - set in for a good hardy nap when you’re finished eating because you’re going to have some serious southern home cooking.)
Mom also attended a fan event in Washington last year along with two of my aunts, two cousins, my brother’s fiancée and various members of her family. It was a big deal.
Paula appeals to a pretty broad cross-section of women and it looks like she even has a talk show coming out later this year.
If it is at all telling, I’ve seen her cooking show enough to have stored the bearded mug of her husband, Savannah tugboat pilot Michael Groover, in my mind.
This is what my mother had to say about Paula:
“I find her high spirited and enthusiastic. I think women relate to her. She comes off as a very ordinary person with a very family-oriented life. She makes us laugh. On her shows, she incorporates a lot about her life, the good and the bad, and makes her family a part of it.”
I’ll be interested to see what Universal Furniture does with Paula; hopefully we can get a sneak peek at next week’s premarket.
Oh, and Tom Russell has cooked up at least one of Paula’s recipes since our conversation, a macaroni and cheese dish.
arthur solie taddei commented:
crunchy fried chicken,oh victor you are so funny,whats wrong with fat old diabetic cooks selling fried furniture to chicken lovers and gathering the models and dead movie stars to sell more fried bedrooms,maybe we should give american companies a discount for NOT having designers design furniture maybe a free bucket of chicken with every order......from ashley n lazy boy etc,
ascot jones chang commented:
well 3 years later look who has PIE and butter on her face,diabeteeeeeeeeeees 2 and now pushing drugs to fight ,not wht loss or diet but take a pill and thats all you need to be ok with a diet of bacon and macaroni and fat.
steve commented:
I want to know where this furniture is manufactured ?
amerigo vespuci commented:
Time to wake upto real design....paleeeeeeez al the celeb fake designers they make me sick,they have no talent,they take the food out of real furniture designers mouths,and they
dumb down the public with more dark boring shlock.When will our industry wake up.....we are falling off the design cliff with all the crap we sell th public created by chefs and hacks with no skills. stop this wave of junk and smelly retread design work its horrendous and says nothing about real design .
Furniture Barn commented:
Furniture Barn in Delaware will be showcasing the Paula Deen Home Furniture. We are very happy to have Paula Deen Home in our house! We welcome all those in Delaware to stop by and experience the quality of this beautiful furniture!
To answer some questions above, the design, talent and such comes from two great manufacturers such as Universal and Craftmaster, both of which produces very quality goods. Not every celebrity does well, but kathy ireland sure has in the furniture industry. This line is good looking and manufactured well. We are very please to offer it to our customers.
Thank you Paula for bringing sophistication to comfort!
Richard
www.furniturebarnshowroom.com/Paula-Deen-Home-Furniture.php
Appalled reader commented:
The fact that this article was even published reflects the degradation of not only the industry, but this publication. Deen is as irrelevant to our industry as George Bush. Using her name to tack onto a collection will surely prove to be one more grandmother's attic collections is one more example of the disease called branding. Branding is the panacea for lack of true creativity. Manufacturers will not pay for real talent and invest in their products because they, themselves no longer understand their market. Throw a clothing designer' name, a dead personality's name, a soap star's name, a model's name, a home doyen's name (Martha) or now a cook's name against a furniture collection and what do you get? You just get one more over priced Asian brown/vanilla collection to run off the cliff with the rest of the lemmings. Heath, would it not have been better to write an article which would have been pro-active to educate manufacturers that they need to invest in product development and not southern fried chefs? This kind of article is worthless in a business publication.
Crystal Nguyen commented:
Heath, you gotta sneak me in to meet her at market! I am a big fan of hers as well. Not so much for her butter and mayo enriched dishes, but rather, for her ability to rise to the top by honing in on what she loves to do and capitalizing on her own uniqueness rather than being a "me too".
Heath Combs commented:
I don't know guys. I don't think that just because there's a celebrity name on a piece of furniture that it automatically must stink. If it is profitable to market an item with Paula Deen's name on it to sell more furniture, I think that's okay. If it takes a Sustainable Furnishing Council logo to help sell it, then that's fine with me too. Furniture stores and suppliers have to make money (especially in this economy), and while Paula might not have designed hundreds of collections, Universal wants to capture some of that segment that identifies with her. Marketing is just a part of doing business.
I know that there are designers behind these licensed lines who do a great job of designing them. I've met some and I know that they work hard to create looks based on the licensee's tastes and lifestyle. That is challenging, but rewarding I'm sure.
The Trump collections have had some great looking pieces, just like Walt Disney, Bob Timberlake, Ralph Lauren and Barbara Barry collections.
A Furniture Store commented:
Sure Paula can cook, and she has done a good job of creating a public persona, with the drama of her life, and the things that she has done, I certainly give her kuddo's --- my Mother was a single Mom, who worked to create a life for her two sons as well. I love her food, ...all with butter!!! And more Butter... But let's be realistic here, what does she really know about furniture? Just a simple statement. Three are already too many "personalities" and not enough designers out there that really do understand and know furniture. We are reducing this industry to public names, without the talent to back it up. Give us real design, in a real world, for a real world. This just makes me sad, and laugh at the same time, as does the Donald Trump line, the Cindy Crawford line, and all the others...I mean really what do these people know about designing furniture???
Astonished Reader commented:
Just
victor pedraz commented:
Making someone into a brand is noteworthy as Katherine C has posted. What is NOT noteworthy is the contunued degradation of an industry that is primarily (or supposed to be) based on artistic, educated design talent; not Ms Deen's strength as a chef and sometime entrepreneur and life coach. We need to be proactive in guiding the furniture manufacturers to support the cause of a "greater good' in our trade or it will turn around to bite us when we least suspect it. Has anyone noticed the decimation of the retail furniture business in our cities? This is a lot more than the economy...it has to do with how we present and sell furniture and to whom.
Katherine C commented:
Women love her and (I personally am not a big fan)but I like her.Furniture designers get to come up with designs that are pleasing to her and the company backing her...she IS an expert but she is relying on OTHER experts to make her a brand...and hopefully one that sells!There is nothing original,its all been done before!!Smart people trust other smart DESIGN people to make a product...and the designers go from there and hopefully to successful careers.Cheers!
Victor Pedraz commented:
Although I agree with Deen's appeal to Southern women and appetites for southern food in general I didn't take note of one significant factor in this article about DESIGN, ARTISTIC TALENT, FINISH KNOWLEDGE etc. All of these factors are necessary to create and nurture a good furnture collection. A hard luck past turning into a gold mine does not qualify a celebrity to be liscensed by a furniture manufacturer. Who next?? A reborn Betty Crocker? or Aunt Jemima? All the pity!!! Has our industry been reduced to honor and extol the fluffiness of an omelette or the crispness of extra crunchy fried chicken? What are the future furniture designers of America getting out of this?
Victor Pedraz commented:
Although I agree with Deen's appeal to Southern women and appetites for southern food in general I didn't take note of one significant factor in this article about DESIGN, ARTISTIC TALENT, FINISH KNOWLEDGE etc. All of these factors are necessary to create and nurture a good furnture collection. A hard luck past turning into a gold mine does not qualify a celebrity to be liscensed by a furniture manufacturer. Who next?? A reborn Betty Crocker? or Aunt Jemima? All the pity!!! Has our industry been reduced to honor and extol the fluffiness of an omelette or the crispness of extra crunchy fried chicken? What are the future furniture designers of America getting out of this?
