HIGH POINT - As much marketing strategist as product designer, Jena Hall is no stranger to capturing consumer hearts and minds with themed cross-category home collections. Nonetheless, when asked by Thomasville to create a line that would resonate with Millennials and garner success on par with the brand's record-breaking Hemingway and Bogart collections, the challenge was a tall order, even for Hall, an interior designer and American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame inductee.
Named Thomasville's Elements & Origins by Jena Hall, the furniture line was unveiled at High Point Market with coordinating rugs at the Thomasville showroom, and also at a teaser space at the Suites at Market Square. For the licensed rug component, Elements & Origins Rugs by Jena Hall, Hall collaborated with longtime friends Liora Manné and Charles Peck of White Plains, NY-based Trans-Ocean.
Liora Manné, designer for Trans-Ocean and Lamontage shows off the Elements & Origins Art Nouveau rug from the Paris Edition at the Trans-Ocean IHFC showroom during High Point Market.
Liora Manné, designer for Trans-Ocean, Lamontage, and a high-end Liora Manné collection for hospitality and residential designers, said the new Elements & Origins collection offers great lifestyle looks. "Jena has an interesting point of view and it is always fun working to put her vision to life in a rug collection," Manné explained.
"We've worked with Jena on many of her collections and we provided the original Bogart and Hemingway rugs for Thomasville. From the reaction at market, we expect Elements & Origins to be a home run again. The product was well received because it is coordinated and makes it easy for retailers to put a room together. Equally important, it shows the consumer how to decorate. Thomasville has great marketing and distribution, and we've already seen a lot of interest in programs," Peck told RugNews.com at Trans-Ocean's IHFC showroom.
Peck said Elements & Origins is the first actual licensed Jena Hall collection for Trans-Ocean. "It will be sold by Thomasville in company-owned stores and their network of independent dealers, which includes the top furniture stores in the country. We will also sell the trademarked Elements & Origins rugs to our own Trans-Ocean customers," he explained. The new collection of 18 hand-tufted designs is offered in either all wool or wool and viscose blends, depending on pattern. Stock opening prices run from $99 to $799. "Each rug comes in standard sizes and they were very well received," Hall told RugNews.com.
One of Manné's personal favorites in the Elements & Origins collection by Jena Hall is the Abby Lane rug from the Britain Edition shown in evergreen and crabby apple red on a boot black ground.
SCANDIA EDITION
Hall's rug designs, like the furniture they are intended to accessorize, are divided into three style groupings: Scandia, Britain and Paris. Scandia furniture combines light wood tones with clean finishes and folklore-based theme inspirations which are repeated in rugs called Scandia Mitered Stripe, Damask Floral Quilt and Reindeer & Wildlife.
The Reindeer & Wildlife design from Elements & Origins' Scandia Edition comes in navy and aged linen (shown), beige, or white and denim colorways.
Buyers at the Thomasville showroom were attracted to a Scandia Edition room featuring the white and denim Damask Floral Quilt design, shown in Navy on Aged Linen White.
PARIS EDITION
Rugs in the Paris Edition include Papillion, an outlined butterfly motif which comes in a round in teal, and rectangles in teal or gold; the Art Nouveau overall floral in two colorways, Paris Deco Geometric offered in teal or neutrals, and another floral called Poppy, which comes in natural or teal. "In this group we celebrate nature the same way designers and consumers did during the Art Nouveau period as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution," Hall said.
The Papillion Rug from the Paris Edition shown at the Thomasville showroom in teal.
Paired with an upholstered bed from the Paris Edition, the Art Nouveau rug is shown in the Peacock and "Teal We Meet Again" colorway.
The Art Nouveau rug from Elements & Origins is offered in two colorways.
Trans-Ocean showed the Elements & Origins Poppy Rug from the Paris Edition in a natural colorway (shown) and in "Teal We Meet Again."
BRITAIN EDITION
The Elements & Origins Britain Edition includes rugs named Keys to the Kingdom, Abby Lane, Hounds Tooth and Brighton Fret. Some of the English pieces are inspired by Savile Row, a street in London primarily known for its upscale menswear shops since the 1700s. The Irish influence, seen in wood pieces such as the rectangular Dublin dining table's top, was inspired by a 17th-century parquet floor, and Scotland inspired a black watch tartan plaid fabric and upholstery pieces named for Scotch whiskies.
From the Elements & Origins Britain Edition, the Brighton Fret rug, shown in Black and Cream is also available in Forever Green and Cream.
Hall introduced the new cross category collection at Thomasville's showroom at a breakfast launch party, explaining that the 100-piece furniture collection (which she describes as American Nouveau) is designed to "offer consumers an exciting way to use their treasured family pieces while adding newer, more functional items that blend seamlessly in a room as though they have always been part of a family's personal journey."
At the event, Roxanne Bernstein, chief marketing officer for Heritage Home Group, Thomasville's parent company, said the new collection should attract millennials where are now the largest segment of home furnishings consumers. Television commercials and print advertising are scheduled for the Elements & Origins collection and will feature the tag line of "Bringing Your World Home."
Bernstein explained, "There was more 'conspicuous consumption' before the Great Recession, but now there is more 'considered consumption.' People want to embrace something with deeper meaning, such as their family heritage or where they have traveled." The commercials shown at market played into the travel and family heritage aspects of the Scandia, Britain and Paris furniture groupings.