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We Put On And Wore Out Our Boots

To get you your stories of regional interests, Casey Loo spent a week in Foshan and I three days in Muar, zipping across these cities, from one industrial estate to another. And it was worthwhile. We interviewed several industry players, visited factories, explored furniture malls and were simply wowed by the immensity of these manufacturing ‘concentration camps’. From finished furniture products ready for retails floors to hardware, components and fabrics, they had it all congregated within vicinity. Read the reports on pages 26-29 (Muar) and pages 32-34 (Foshan).
Though Foshan and Muar are miles apart, they share many similarities (and in them, unique differences). Both rose to the occasion some 20 years ago as their countries’ furniture manufacturing pioneers. Muar, the Furniture Town, is officially the first in Malaysia to promote itself as an exporter and Foshan’s Longjiang town is remembered affectionately as the ‘The First Town of Furniture in China’, the Longjiang Government’s website writes.

With sights still within Asia, we also carry a Country Report on Singapore (pg 22). With comparatively insignificant manufacturing capabilities, the lion city is injecting itself with a Design DNA to stay within the race. Admittedly, the Design Wonderland is only in its work-in-progress stage now. But participation from stylish, global names such as Mamagreen and Karim Rashid in the International Furniture Fair Singapore (pg 23) helps build a nurturing environment for design competency, which local veterans lament is lacking in their Furniture Towns.

The US has a major feature in this issue as well. Furniture/Today’s Top 100 US Furniture Stores 2009 (pg 42) confirms that Ashley still reigns as king. But even its empire sustained a 15.4 percent drop in annual sales. In fact, most of these 100 companies posted negative growth. The weekly newspaper’s publisher (and our editorial advisor), Joseph Carroll says in his opinion piece (pg 40) that this is nevertheless a glass-half-full situation. Besides, according to him, retail sales of furniture have picked up the first quarter of 2009.

Yet some may cross their arms in protest: What if my business is not picking up! Tom Halvorsen from West Bros Furniture writes: “Know Thyself!” In his article (pg 46-47), Halvorsen suggests a series of questions that vendors and dealers should check themselves through, which should help in “really understanding who you are, and expressing what you stand for concisely and consistently, both within your organisation and to your customers”.

Some words of advice too perhaps, by Roger E Porter from the 85 year-old Vaughan Furniture: “We have to keep generating fresh ideas. There is always going to be furniture sales and only those products that make it to the floor will sell”. (pg 50-51).

What kinds of design ideas are considered fresh, you might ask. Award winning design guru Michael Lanz from Germany, as well as Milou Ket, resident trend forecaster at Furnitex Australia who has worked with companies including Ikea and Esprit Home products, can shed some light. (See sections Design, pg 48-49 and Trendcasting, pg 52-56.)

And for those who have your own interpretation, please share them with us. We’ll be strapping on our boots again and journey to our booths at Furnitex Melbourne (no. S50) this July, and later the Furniture Shanghai, CIFF Guangzhou and HCMC Expo in September/October.
Enjoy the issue!

Nicole Liang
Assistant Editor