HIGH POINT, NC— Linon Home Décor continues to focus on innovation in seating in mass market furniture, with the upholstery fabrics it chooses and product design.
However, George Schwartz, vp/merchandising, noted that Linon wants to highlight an additional element: finishes. The company has been choosing materials and then carefully considering finishes to provide refined designs.
Even when it comes to framing the fabric that is the most conspicuous element in much of Linon’s upholstered seating, the company is adding “more detail, more finishes, that’s what we’re trying to get to. It’s the finishes more than anything,” he said.
Linon is applying that approach to design in its traditionally constructed accent chairs. However, the company is also expanding its line of office seating, one that uses accent chair styling over a caster base to provide a furniture piece that functions in its basic task yet is flexible enough to stand in as everyday or entertainment seating.
In stools as well, where Linon’s latest focus has been in wood products, a rubberwood frame backless stool, in one example, gets a more engaging look given a wire brushed finish. In a recently developed line of high- and medium-back settees as well, the frame is critical to setting the stage for a look that the upholstery fabric sells to the consumer.
In taking such an approach, Schwartz said, Linon can satisfy the consumer’s desire for newness while providing furniture that is consistent with trends and tastes as reflected in the mass market.
“You can enhance but you don’t necessarily rewrite the rules,” he said.