Delivering that special something

For most home decor retailers and design boutiques, the ability to provide “something special” through customization and convenience is just as important as a well-edited merchandise selection. And for that, we can credit something that looks like this: a well-informed, time-strapped consumer who seeks meaning and authenticity in things and experiences.

Retailer Bill Warren, owner of Statesville, N.C.'s Shops UpFront House & Garden, sums it up best. “My customers have become far more educated and discriminating in their selections,” Warren said. “I've been in business for nine years. When I first started we could just buy anything. Now it takes more thought, expertise and merchandising.”

New York-based designer Jamie Drake credits the rise in the value of time to living in a world of instantaneous information, “Being available 24/7 and having so much to do makes anything that simplifies life and creates a little more leisure time the ultimate luxury,” Drake said.

And while many find great satisfaction in owning that one-of-a-kind, specially-customized item, Los Angeles-based designer Tim Andreas says the appeal of original and artisan-crafted goods at the upper tier is driven by the commodification and mass-production of luxury brands.

Christi Tullis of Suwanee, Georgia-based Ambiance, has become an expert at delivering the “special” things. “We order furniture and refinish it as soon as it dawns our dock, from haute high-gloss lacquer to dripping distress with hand-painted motifs.” From a merchandising aspect, Tullis said it helps to create drama and facilitates style change to fit the store displays. But more importantly, it ensures that the customer won't go anywhere else to purchase the piece. “They can't — we've made it an Ambiance Original.”

Tullis recently had great success with a basic three-drawer chest that she had distressed and hand-painted with a waterwheel motif taken from her client's old homestead. For the same client, a “basic bland, mahogany buffet was bedecked in gold-leaf and a brand-new, dock-delivered Victorian mahogany wall curio was stripped, painted and distressed” to give it the look and patina of a hundred-year-old antique. “When she saw them, the client was so happy, she cried,” Tullis said.

The popularity of original art, as a product and an attraction, is on the upswing. Once relegated to museums, galleries and private collections, the work of emerging and well-known artists and craftsmen rotates through many stores on a cyclical basis, complete with opening celebrations, artist receptions and the publicity that comes with those. Tullis prefers working directly with an artist, “so that we are guaranteed originality.” She said it also gives her freedom to request custom colors or commission work.

Brant Williams has taken the original art idea a step further. Williams, who spent 10 years as a design industry sales person, designer and visual merchandiser at Gabberts, Four Hands and Global Views, was motivated into his current line of work by an inability to find just the right paintings to enhance his projects. His company, Dallas-based B. Williams Original Reproductions, offers a collection of his own original acrylic and mixed media artwork that can be customized in different color combinations and sizes for the client desiring an original piece of art, or wholesale buyers looking for giclee reproductions in limited editions.

Canadian brand communications specialist Laurent Guez is also making an interesting move into the originality-marketing arena with Moodroom, scheduled to open this spring in Rue St. Paul, Montreal. Guez said that after 25 years of “observing the evolution of retail to the current state of mass product saturation,” he has identified a trend in consumer demand for novel, high-quality design products that have a distinctive story to tell. So, he's scoured the globe for “exceptional products and limited edition discoveries that connect and complement my vision of a modern, high-design, individualistic interior.” The collection hints of “hedonistic pleasures for the home” and will be staged in a cement and wood-beam 15,000-sq.-ft. industrial building.

“There is a void in the marketplace for home products to authentically connect with consumers in a relevant and interesting way,” Guez said. At Moodroom, aisles will lead shoppers through product collections, shop-in-shop branded niches and service areas to include a fabric bar, a book bar, a bloom bar, an art bar, a gourmet bar and, for meetings with Moodroom's style consultants, a “bespoke” bar. His goal? “We intend to revolutionize the shopping experience by creating an ambience of cutting-edge style, creative inspiration, trend news, exceptional custom service and pleasure.”

Independent retailers who know how to deliver that “special something” are among those recognized by Home Accents Today each May in our annual 50 Retail Stars issue. If you would like to recommend a store or nominate your own, please drop me an e-mail at susan.dickenson@reedbusiness.com.