Glenn Lawson and Grant Fenning met at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena and, both being Los Angeles transplants, immediately became enthralled with Southern California architecture and midcentury furniture. “We jumped right in and started buying [items for] our apartments, going to flea markets, going to thrift stores, doing that whole thing, and suddenly, Grant had a garage full of furniture. We were like, ‘What are we doing?’” Lawson tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “Let’s try to double down on this. Let’s buy some more furniture. Let’s fix it up. Let’s give it our vision and see if we can sell it. We drove to the Rose Bowl [Flea Market] and we sold everything within an hour.”
After that initial success, the duo continued to host pop-ups, and visitors started requesting they open their own shop. Lawson and Fenning found a space in Old Town Pasadena, and before they knew it, were running a busy furniture store. Their first year attracted celebrity designers like Michael S. Smith and Kelly Wearstler, and after graduation, Lawson and Fenning developed their inaugural furniture line. It debuted at ICFF in 2001, and the brand took off—they never had to go back to the furniture fair.
Today, Lawson-Fenning has a new showroom in New York, its first outside of L.A., and new collaborations with CB2 and Design Within Reach. Despite its growth, the company has made a point to keep prices as accessible as possible. “I do think that that’s one of the tenets that we took from midcentury modernism: that things should be approachable,” says Fenning. “I mean, things get more expensive as you grow bigger, and as you refine your quality, but we’ve always kept sight of that and tried to keep our prices as reasonable as we could.”
With widespread growth comes the inevitable copycats and dupes, but the duo takes it in stride. “If your work is exciting or interesting, people are going to copy it,” says Fenning. After noticing that the company’s pieces were most often duped in the hospitality sector, the co-founders made a conscious effort to cultivate new business in that side of the industry. “They’re knocking you off because they either want a lower price point or they want to be able to control the production. If we can offer that to [hospitality clients with] a better price point at scale and unlimited customization, suddenly we’ve cracked the code and are able to jump into a different market,” says Lawson. “We know people are going to copy us. It’s just the nature of the business. We’re pretty prolific with our designs. We just keep it moving.”
Crucial insight: Lawson and Fenning have embraced the mantra that slow and steady wins the race. “We’ve had some pretty eclectic locations over the years, and we have had very little signage. We’ve never had any marketing, we’ve never done sales,” says Fenning, adding that the brand has never taken on any capital or investment. “It’s just an in-the-know kind of word-of-mouth thing, and I think that it just suited us.” While the increase in business during and after the pandemic was great, they hope the industry doesn’t return to that level of busyness anytime soon. “I think slow growth for us has always been really important, and being able to manage everything because we are so hands-on. That level of expansion, [and] that quickly, was a little uncomfortable for us,” adds Lawson. “We’re much better in this phase of the world where we can really grow smartly and slowly. That’s our comfort level.”
Key quote: “I think we both really want to be connected to the product and the brand and the clients. As we got bigger and as there was more room between us and the final user, that got a little uncomfortable for us. We’re still in the showroom every day. We’re still talking with people. We really like having that high touch,” says Lawson. “As we were getting bigger and bigger, that creativity started to take a bit of a back seat to all the ‘fun’ stuff like HR and accounting, and I think we realized there’s a comfortable place for us with growth, where we can still be creative and still be connected.”
This episode is sponsored by Ernesta and Crypton. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The Thursday Show
Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including Wayfair’s latest numbers, a new tech tool for showrooms, and a critique of the blandness of Zillow. Later, lighting designer Lindsey Adelman joins the show to talk about a major change at her studio.
This episode is sponsored by Jaipur Living and Hector Finch. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
