Feature: What's In a Name?
March 1, 2004
So why should the
furniture business be any different? asks another independent, Marc Desplaines,
owner and designer of San Francisco–based Antoine Proulx. After all, the
marriage between furniture makers and interior designers is a long-established
union. “When you look back at Pierre Chareau, Eugene Printz, Eileen Gray or
Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, they were all interior designers who started making
furniture so that they could control it. It’s how they established their look
and how they got their commissions,” says Desplaines.
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Bill Sofield’s Kiosk butler’s chest has lacquered doors that open to reveal
a mirrored interior and fitted trays. From
Baker. (Click image to enlarge)Baker had a unique partnership with Danish designer Finn Juhl as early as 1950, says Daniel Bradley, and it will launch French designer Jacques Garcia’s signature line this spring. Nevertheless, says Bradley, despite the success of subsequent licensing partners throughout the 1990s, “we use these names to enhance the Baker brand, not replace it.”
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Marc Desplaines of Antoine Proulx designed the bedroom suite—platform bed,
bedside table and light fixtures—in smoke gray oak. (Photo by Ted Dillard, click to enlarge)That may have been true in the beginning, but designer names have permanently
altered the landscape of the furniture business. “When I started Aero Studio in
the late 1980s, it was amazing how little luxury was in the furniture market,”
says Bill Sofield, whose store designs for Gucci and furniture collection for
Baker have garnered the New York designer international celebrity status. “At
the time, The New York Times was doing stories like ‘The New Frugality’ and
making it sound as if a well-made sofa was indulgent and very politically
incorrect. But after 9/11 and the whole Enron scandal, I think people have a
fear of the power that corporations levy. Individual designer names bring a more
human approach—there is actually a personality behind the collection.”
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