By Andrea Lillo
Retailers who ventured to Las Vegas for the recent Las Vegas Market found both style and value among the numerous rug introductions.
“People are looking for freshness, newness and a lot of value,” said Amir Loloi, president of Loloi, which showed four new collections. “Even the high-end customer is looking for value in high-end product,” but it still has to have fashion, he added. “People react to the fashion that we bring,” he said.
The Rug Market brought in a value collection to offer lower price points to its customers. “We wanted to come up with something that was price sensitive because of the economy,” said Mike Shabtai, president of The Rug Market. The 24 designs in the line are from existing collections but are printed on acrylic to get the lower price point, he said.
The outdoor category is also strong for The Rug Market. “There’s a lot of potential in outdoor,” Shabtai said. “It hasn’t been affected by the economy yet.” The company went from 10 to 40 designs in that group within a year.
Kaleen’s Paula Deen collection has more than doubled the number of SKUs due to its success, said Joe Barkley, executive vice president, and now includes an outdoor group called Home & Porch. “We designed pretty rugs first, and then we made them durable to go outside,” he said. “Americans are looking to expand their outdoor living spaces.”
Metallics is part of the mix at Dynamic Rugs, which debuted new shiny looks in its existing Allure line. “It’s all about texture and effect,” said Jon Morrison, vice president of sales and marketing. Using a Lurex-coated yarn, the five new metallic designs are in such bold colorways as red and black. Shags are another focus at Dynamic and the company expanded its offerings with the new Romance collection, a polyester, leatherlike shag in five colors.
Surya made a big push into its coordinate product categories to complement a number of existing area rug styles. Wall decor, decorative pillows and throws now complement about 350 area rugs, said Seth King, vice president of sales and marketing. “We started with some of our best-selling rug styles and added other coordinating accessories [pillows, throws and wall art] to give our retailers easy, one stop, great design choices to complete any furniture vignette,” he said.