Varaluz branches out into furniture
Its launch at High Point Market — encompassing roughly 60 SKUs of casegoods and accent pieces, with 60 more to come in October — furthers the company’s expansion into whole home.
HIGH POINT – Most people are accustomed to looking up at the ceiling in a lighting showroom; Varaluz is getting people to look around at eye level, too.
Its furniture launch at High Point Market — encompassing roughly 60 SKUs of casegoods and accent pieces, with 60 more to come in October — furthers the company’s expansion into whole home and enables it to tell its story a little better, said company President Ron Henderson.
He acknowledged that Varaluz has a reputation for being ahead-of-the-curve and a little “out-there, design-wise,” although he doesn’t see his company’s designs that way. Varaluz taps existing design trends but incorporates more than one design element into each fixture so that it can work in many different room settings, he said.
The furniture pieces, labeled Conrad Blair and created by veteran furniture designers from the industry, do the same by complementing Varaluz lighting and addressing several home décor styles, Henderson said. There are touches of refined Memphis and Bauhaus in the new collection, with plenty of the arches and curves that were prominent throughout High Point showrooms at the spring market.
The pieces are made in Vietnam and the Philippines from solid, traceable woods such as poplar, ash and oak that is certified by third-party organizations in Asia. Upholstery fabrics are all high-performance, low-VOC and the seating (mostly memory foam) is rated for 150,000 ups-and-downs. Within about a year and a half, Varaluz will be able to offer customization services, Henderson said.
Varaluz, which already offers a sizeable assortment of mirrors as well as other home décor items in its Casa line, hopes to expand its customer base with its furniture line: its core audience remains independent lighting showrooms and the interior design trade and, to a limited extent, furniture stores and boutiques. But more lighting showrooms are branching out into furniture, according to Henderson, because they have the floor space to do so, and Varaluz is doing the same.
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