This week in design, high-end home-accessories shoppers are dying to get their hands on a $190 soap dispenser, courtesy of downtown Manhattan decor boutique and cafe Gem Home. Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, events, recommended reading and more.
Business News
The home furnishings category has recorded year-over-year gains for the first time in almost two years, Furniture Today reports. The gain was a real improvement too: In February 2023, sales popped a modest 0.1 percent, whereas the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows $11.18 billion in sales—a 1.5 percent boost from October of last year. Still, the new numbers weren’t all rosy: Last month’s sales marked a decline of 1.3 percent from September’s pace, and the furniture and home category’s cumulative year-to-date sales are down 3.9 percent from the same point last year.
California-based lighting and furniture retailer Lamps Plus agreed to a $4.1 million settlement in a case brought forth by the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, which alleged that the company engaged in false advertising and unfair competition, Furniture Today reports. The lawsuit centered on the retailer’s use of false “compare at” tags to display a lower sale price, which the DA claims was used to market Lamps Plus products without any clear correlation to a specific competitor in the market. The suit also alleges Lamps Plus used a phony “strike through” advertised reference price to indicate a bargain, despite the fact that the item was never sold at the lower price. Lamps Plus has not admitted any liability or wrongdoing, but has cooperated with the investigation. The company did not respond to FT’s request for comment.
The global personal luxury goods industry is set to record a 2 percent sales decline for 2024, marking the sector’s first significant decline (aside from the pandemic) since the 2008 financial crisis, Reuters reports. According to a new report from management consultancy Bain & Company on apparel, beauty and accessories, the drop reflects a particularly sharp decline in China—which it predicts will see a sales drop of 20 to 22 percent—and weaker consumer confidence across the board. Over the last two years, the global luxury consumer base has shrunk by 50 million from a total of roughly 400 million consumers, Bain partner Federica Levato told Reuters.
U.S. homebuilder confidence hit a seven-month high in November, Bloomberg reports. The latest monthly results from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, which surveys builders on their perceptions of the state of the market, also revealed that expectations for sales over the next six months were the highest they’ve been since April 2022. According to NAHB chairman Carl Harris, builders are optimistic about the industry’s near future following Republican election wins, which they expect to result in regulatory changes that pave the way for more home and apartment construction. Still, the organization’s chief economist, Robert Dietz, pointed out that the industry is still facing major headwinds, including labor shortages, limited building lot supply and high materials costs, along with concerns that the Trump administration’s plans to enforce an immigration crackdown could strain the construction industry, which is largely powered by undocumented workers (who make up roughly one-fifth of the sector’s workforce, according to some estimates).
Amazon and Ikea have teamed up with around three dozen other companies to form a new coalition aimed at utilizing near-zero emissions e-fuels to power their ocean freight, Reuters reports. The Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance, as the new group is called, plans to invite shipping firms to bid on a contract in January to transport their cargo on vessels powered by fuels like e-methanol, with the goal of enacting three-to-five-year contracts beginning in 2027. The companies hope the coalition will bring the ocean shipping industry—which currently emits 3 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases—close to the benchmark of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Amazon Haul Store officially launched this week, offering a discount e-commerce site designed to rival low-cost competitors Temu and Shein. The site’s entire selection—300 million products across more than 35 categories, including home and electronics—cost $20 or less, with typical delivery times of one to two weeks. Though the site does not feature a rumored $20 sofa, it features pillows for as low as $2.99. As TechCrunch reports, rivals Temu and Shein have attracted criticism for their similarly structured marketplaces, both for their environmental impact (a result of the emissions-heavy process of shipping cheap goods across the world at a rapid pace) and for alleged forced labor violations; however, it’s too early to tell if Amazon’s model will face the same pushback.
Launches and Collaborations
Design gallery The Future Perfect teamed up with luxury rug and fabric brand Christopher Farr for the debut of a new rug collection. With concepts drawn up by Christopher Farr along with The Future Perfect founder David Alhadeff and his husband, Jason Duzansky, during the height of the pandemic lockdowns, the resulting product assortment includes two categories with different aims—one evoking large-scale paintings, and the other showcasing simple graphic patterns.
Home fragrance brand Slatkin + Co. partnered with Elton John for the debut of a special-edition holiday collection. An homage to the musician’s country estate in England—and a nod to his rock star lifestyle—the 10-item Woodside line features candles, diffusers and accessories with a festive touch.
Showroom Representation
Luxury appliance brand Dacor is now the exclusive provider of appliances for Scavolini’s new showroom at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Florida. The 5,500-square-foot showroom features six kitchen vignettes combining Scavolini’s luxury kitchen furnishings with Dacor’s cooking, refrigeration and dishwashing appliances.
Recommended Reading
A sculpture of two toes; a lime green accent wall; a life-size pig-shaped coffee table—each sounds offputting on its own, but somehow feels like the perfect fit in an otherwise aesthetically pleasing room. As Julia Cancilla writes for Elle Decor, that’s the ethos behind a trend known as jolie laide, or “pretty-ugly,” that’s taking over social media right now, based on the principle that no space is complete without an eyebrow-raising conversation piece.
Speaking of bold design choices, certain architects and designers have gotten more and more creative over the years when it comes to crafting staircases—sometimes making moving between floors a perilous (if artistic) journey. As Amanda Holpuch writes for The New York Times, these particularly daring flights are being documented in a Facebook group called Death Stairs, in which nearly 800,000 members share photos of designs like a staircase made of pipe fittings and a glass spiral staircase with mirrored walls.
