Last year, Airbnb unveiled Barbie’s Malibu Dreamhouse—this year, it’s Polly Pocket’s turn to become a host on the platform. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, events, recommended reading and more.
Business News
Dallas-based high-end furniture retailer James Antony Home has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, Home News Now reports. Filed earlier this month in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the petition cites assets of $100,000 to $500,000 against liabilities of $1 million to $10 million owed to an estimated 100 to 199 creditors. While this type of bankruptcy typically allows businesses to sell off their assets in order to repay creditors, the filing states that James Antony Home currently has no property immediately available for liquidation. Since its opening in 2019, the showroom has counted a number of luxury furniture makers among its vendors—including Bernhardt, Hooker Furnishings, Chaddock, Century and Theodore Alexander.
Louisville, Kentucky–based retailer Burdorf Interiors is closing after nearly 160 years, Furniture Today reports. Since its founding in 1867, the home decor business has operated several locations throughout the state, consolidating operations at its store in Middletown after its current owners purchased Burdorf in 1993. According to a post on the company’s Facebook page, several factors contributed to the decision to close the business, but the largest was the 2020 passing of Allan Morris, who led the company for more than 30 years. The statement said that the closure will not affect open orders, but that the business had begun to sell off existing inventory and has stopped taking custom orders.
Wisconsin-based Besse Forest Products Group—a manufacturer of North American hardwood veneer, lumber and specialty plywood for furniture, cabinets, doors, flooring, millwork and more—is shutting down three of its four facilities and laying off nearly 150 workers, Furniture Today reports. In each of three separate WARN notices filed in early August, the company cited an “unprecedented industry downturn” for its financial woes. While the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act typically requires employers to give a 60-day notice before implementing layoffs, Besse let go its employees just one day after filing, appearing to be appealing to an exception for “unforeseeable business circumstances.” The reductions come just a five months after the company was acquired by private investment firm Hoffmann Family of Companies.
Airbnb is embarking on a rollout of new products and services outside of short-term vacation rentals, CEO Brian Chesky announced on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. As TechCrunch reports, the company will launch a “co-hosting” feature this fall, allowing homeowners who don’t have time to manage their own rental listings to outsource the job to other hosts. Additionally, the platform plans to relaunch its Experiences offering next year—a service originally rolled out temporarily last year that allows Airbnb guests to book outings and tours on the platform—and is exploring in-home experiences like personal chefs, massages and midstay cleanings. With its revamped offerings, the platform is aiming to recapture sales amid a slowdown that saw its profits fall by 15 percent last quarter from a year earlier, sending Airbnb stock down more than 16 percent.
Williams-Sonoma has added Arianna Huffington, co-founder of The Huffington Post, to its board of directors, Furniture Today reports. Huffington currently serves as CEO of Thrive Global—a wellness platform she founded in 2016 with the goal of improving health and productivity. According to statements from Williams-Sonoma president and CEO Laura Alber and board chair Scott Dahnke, Huffington’s extensive leadership experience, including with companies like Uber and investment firm Onex, contributed to her appointment.
Home security giant ADT recently experienced a cyberattack that compromised customer data, TechCrunch reports. The breach allowed hackers to access the company’s database of customer home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, but ADT says a “small percentage” of customers were affected, and it has “no reason to believe” that its home security systems were compromised. Though the regulatory filing disclosing the hack was published last Wednesday, the company did not specify when exactly the incident happened. According to the article, the filing came a week after a seller on a cybercrime forum claimed to have over 30,000 stolen customer records from ADT, though the claims could not be immediately verified. A spokesperson for the company—which is owned by the same private equity firm as TechCrunch—declined to answer the publication’s request for comment.
Launches and Collaborations
Pantone has announced the launch of Pantone Color Insider—a new trend forecasting and analysis feature available through its digital platform, Pantone Connect. Curated by a dedicated editorial team, the information hub will provide a combination of expert trend insights, education on color usage and theory, topline data on color use across industries and cities, and workflow integration with mood boards and palettes on Pantone Connect.
Wayfair Professional has teamed up with six interior designers to curate their favorite pieces from the furniture and decor retailer’s collections for its newly relaunched Tastemakers program. The Tastemakers—Amber Guyton, Ann Lopez, Michelle Fahmy, Dan Mazzarini, and design duo Sondra Lagasse and Jill Simms—were tapped to create online Designer Shops with Wayfair Professional product assortments inspired by their personal design styles.
As it kicks off a year dedicated to better sleep, Ikea has debuted an immersive experience in New York called the “Sleepeasy.” The SoHo exhibition, which closes after this weekend, is accessible through a hidden door inside a space reimagined as a Swedish bodega. Inside, larger-than-life interactive room stagings with beds, loungers, pillows, blankets and throws are designed around the six sleep essentials: comfort, light, temperature, sound, air quality and decluttering.
Showhouses
The fifth annual Kips Bay Decorator Show House in Dallas will be held this year at an estate in the city’s Turtle Creek neighborhood. Once intended to become the site of a Mandarin Oriental hotel, the property is located between the historic Rosewood Mansion and the planned Four Seasons Hotel & Residences, and it features the neighborhood’s signature French Renaissance style. Reimagined by a cohort of designers (to be announced in the coming weeks), the space will debut to the public for about three weeks beginning October 25, with proceeds to benefit local charities Dwell with Dignity and The Crystal Charity Ball.
The fourth edition of the Brooklyn Heights Designer Showhouse takes place this year at 182 Clinton Street, part of the neighborhood’s historic “Doctors’ Row.” The space will be reimagined by a group of 15 interior designers, including Allegra O. Eifler Design, Alon Studio, Batliboi Studio, Casa Angulo, Ingui Architecture, Isy’s Interiors, JAM, JMorris Design, Kate McElhiney Studio, Landed Interiors, Project Plant, Rebecca Amir Design, Rinehardt Miller Interiors, Shapeless Studio, Steven Walsh Design and Studio Jai. The showhouse will be open to the public from Friday, September 27, through Sunday, November 3, with proceeds supporting the Brooklyn Heights Association, which focuses on preserving the historic neighborhood.
Showroom Representation
The Design Social Studio, a boutique textile, wallpaper and leather showroom headquartered in Atlanta, is now exclusively representing textile design company Maison Venu throughout the Southeast region. The showroom will carry the brand’s collection of botanical designs from its debut assortment, which includes the patterns Marguerite, Bahti, Leyla, Primrose and Tuileries.
Recommended Reading
Each year 12 million tons of furniture is sent to landfills in the United States—but a growing number of local and national organizations are eager to give those items a second life. For The Washington Post, Natalie Delgadillo provides a thorough guide to finding resources for used furnishings and decor donations, putting a spotlight on the lesser-known operations that place furniture directly into the hands of domestic violence survivors, refugees and families in need.
In 1996, Ralph Lauren Home debuted a line of paint with a unique twist: The addition of branded brushes and instructional techniques (demonstrated via VHS tape) allowed homeowners to achieve the texture of leather, linen or denim. For the Prune newsletter, Tyler Watamanuk dives into the discontinued line—a piece of design history that remains a staple of online secondhand marketplaces more than a decade after it was removed from shelves for good.
