DALTON, Ga.--Kaleen has signed celebrity chef Paula Deen to be the face for three floor covering collections launching in January. Among them are the company's first two machine-made collections.
"We did a focus group and the name that constantly came up was Paula Deen," said Joe Barkley, executive vice president of Kaleen, regarding the company's search for the ideal face for its products. "Paula Deen represents, more than anyone I know, family and comfort, and we see this whole license working with that."
Barkley said the company's primary reason for entering the machine-made category is to expand into what is a larger segment of the floor covering business. "The machine-made pool of customers is five or six times larger than the handmade portion," he said.
The Paula Deen collections scheduled to launch next month are an indoor/outdoor line, a transitional machine-made line and a hand-tufted line. Barkley said the move marks Deen's first foray into home fashion and that she will be "hands on" in the development of her products with Kaleen.