Most brand founders don’t get to start a new company with 20 years of clout already built in, but Cyrus Loloi isn’t your average founder. His family’s eponymous textile company has been a staple of the trade and wholesale sectors for over two decades, collaborating on rug collections with design heavy hitters like Joanna Gaines, Amber Lewis and Brigette Romanek, among others. Now, in addition to his role as the company’s chief marketing officer and principal, Cyrus and his brother Steven are gambling on a new whole-home venture, a sister brand they’ve dubbed Joon Loloi. “I’ve made the joke that we’re a 20-year-old startup,” says Cyrus. “It’s a totally new brand, but there’s a legacy behind it.”
The DTC brand will launch with over 500 designs and 3,000 SKUs of furniture, lighting, decor, art—and, yes, new rugs too. The assortment features a contemporary, modern minimalism at an affordable price point that should resonate with a mass audience, and is full of pieces that would pair nicely with rugs from Loloi’s wholesale business. “From an aesthetic standpoint, we’re borrowing from the existing Loloi DNA, which is having a diverse assortment that we think is relevant for what the market is looking for now, and trying to design toward the edge of the box, so to speak,” explains Cyrus. “If you design outside the box, you’re too novel—maybe editors think you’re cool, but you’re not commercially viable and you won’t sell a lot of product. But if you’re too safe, you are boring. The trade doesn’t want that, and we don’t think consumers want that either. So we are trying to be fresh and novel, but in a way that’s still relevant to the market.”
Joon Loloi was spurred by the increase in visibility that the textile brand has seen over the past few years, thanks in large part to its collaborations with high-profile designers who have massive social media followings. The Loloi brothers (whose father, Amir, founded the textile brand in Dallas in the early aughts), felt there was an opportunity to expand the company’s footprint while still maintaining the loyalty of its B2B customers. “We wanted to make Loloi a brand name, but how do we do that in a way that makes sense? We felt that this DTC framework, under a separate sister brand, was the best way to do that,” says Cyrus.
Following that thinking, the brothers wanted to keep Loloi in the name while still creating a distinct brand identity. The word “joon” loosely translates to “dear” in Farsi, a nod to the family’s Iranian roots. “It was a really intentional decision,” says Cyrus. “We didn’t want it to be ‘Loloi Joon’ because we didn’t want consumers to drop the second part of the name as a shorthand and blur the lines between the two brands. That said, we also think all ships rise with the tide, and attention for Joon Loloi will bring a halo of cool and an overall awareness to Loloi, creating more demand for our retail partners.”
While a desire to flex different creative muscles was core to the creation of the new brand, Cyrus also points out that, in a less-than-sunny economic climate, the move was a way for the parent company to stay nimble. “When you’re looking at the wholesale business, that always ebbs and flows. Those dynamics are changing all the time. When you have a DTC business model, it’s not easy, but it does allow you to control your own fate to some degree,” he says. “While we are still extremely active in our B2B business and we have very ambitious plans for operational improvements in 2025, we see Joon Loloi as a way to diversify our business and keep us healthy.”
Logistically speaking, there’s some operational overlap between Loloi and Joon Loloi. Staff is shared in some departments, like warehousing, while new hires were brought on to support the new brand, including a dedicated consumer-facing customer service department.
To help further distinguish the two brands, Cyrus is adamant that the rug selection on Joon Loloi be different enough so as not to compete with Loloi’s existing offerings. “We want to honor Loloi’s retail customers that have gotten us to where we are today,” he says. “We did it the hard way. It’s an entirely new product line, A to Z. We’re not interested in creating conflict for the trade, ourselves or our retailers.” That commitment extends to avoiding overlapping designer collaborations. (Don’t expect to see a Magnolia Home collection for Joon Loloi anytime soon.) Cyrus does hint, however, that the brand will steal a page from that existing playbook, with its first designer collaboration rolling out in the new year. “We believe in that model, absolutely,” he says. “We really enjoy working with different creators, so that’s definitely going to be part of our strategy.”
Cyrus and Steven considered building their new venture slowly—launching with rugs and pillows and adding other categories over time—but ultimately decided to debut a full product assortment from day one to show they’re serious about the expansion. “We want to start building credibility and awareness for this brand,” says Cyrus. “We kept coming back to these concepts of value and intention. We are big into the idea that home is not just a place that should be comfortable and pretty, but it is a very important part of the narrative of our lives. It’s like a springboard for empowerment, helping us to achieve the things we want in our lives. We plan to build on the legacy that Loloi already has, while bringing this new perspective to the trade and retail consumers alike.”
