The New York Gift Show
September 11th, 2008 . by The Linen DoctorThe annual New York International Gift Show, held August 16-19, is so much bigger and grander than the comparable show recently held in San Francisco. Not only were the vendor booths in the At Home section held at Pier 94 and the Javits Convention Center much larger in size and more spectacular in presentation, but our main bedding vendors showed here (but not in San Francisco): Sferra, Matouk, Anali, Hamburg House, just to name a few. Many of our vendors, such as Yves Delorme and Home Source, showed in their permanent showrooms at 230 Fifth Ave.

It was wonderful to be able to sit down with the owners of all of these companies, e.g., Nancy Koltes at Nancy Koltes and Paul Hooker at Sferra, and catch up on both our personal and business lives. Everyone agreed that the last year had been especially challenging and we brainstormed about what would be happening in the coming year, whether it is new display ideas or new merchandising programs.
Visiting other retail stores to see how they were displaying bedding is always interesting. Beds were made with coverlets with folded duvets with duvet covers at the end of the bed. We have always shown our duvet covers completely spread out so the customer can really see what they will look like. I wondered if that was a New York style since duvet covers aren’t really needed there in the warmer summer months.

I specifically went looking for organic sheets and came home with two samples, one from Sferra and another from a new company called Goldie Home, which is based here in San Francisco. We will now do some testing by actually using these samples and seeing how they feel and look after a few washings.
My favorite new bedding prints were Mai Tai from the 1891 Collection by Sferra and Palatiane by Yves Delorme. My favorite high end bedding line was Alanya, a jacquard duvet cover by Sferra, which we will stock shortly. In the home accessory category, I was quite impressed by a number of silk flower lines from Diane James Designs, Immortalis Botanicals, and New Growth Designs. They make such great accents anywhere in the home and look very real.


It’s always exciting to go New York for any reason and today I’m off to New York for the annual gift show, which includes a home section. All of our main vendors will be showing either at the Javits, the Piers, in permanent showrooms.
Besides seeing new introductions, it’s always great to see the people you talk to on the phone all year long, as well as comparing notes with other retailers. This year should be especially interesting since most vendors and retailers consider this past year as being a very challenging one and I am curious to see how they handled it.
When I go to this show a few times every year, it’s more to look for display ideas and see design and color trends that are developing. When Shelley, the home accessory and gift buyer, and I went on July 27, we specifically went looking for things to go with the sheet pattern, “Hera” by Yves Delorme, that we will be featuring in our Christmas window.
We get this question all of the time. The main reason is that mattresses are no longer a standard size and most are much thicker now than in the past since the “high profile” mattresses are considered more luxurious. A very common complaint years ago was the fitted sheets were too tight or didn’t have long enough sides to completely cover their mattress. And certainly now long enough to have bit of tuck under to prevent the fitted sheet from riding up the mattress and coming “undone.”
When I first started in the business in the 70’s, full was a much more common size, but not so much anymore. People now want a wider mattress so they have the luxury of more width and now spend more time in their bedrooms since so many have either a television or even a whole entertainment center in their bedrooms. I’ve never seen a statistic on which rooms people watch the 10 o’clock news or Leno or Letterman, but I have a hunch a fair number are watching from their beds.
“Lowell,”
The guys have more interesting sheets. Mr. Big has a set with 1” appliqué
on the face and on the edge of the sham, black on grey, similar to Matouk’s Legato, which has three rows rather than two, sitting in front of plain light grey solid. At least I think they’re light grey. They could also be white, hard to tell. He also has a silk quilt with rows of quilting near the edge, like Kumi Kookoon’s “Classic Silk Throw.”
Out in California, we get to see two of Samantha’s hunk’s sheets. The first is a rather conservative tone-on-tone small plaid, like Christian Fischbacher’s “Batist Web.” The second set looks like zebra stripes, except blue on a white ground. We don’t have any pattern like that at Scheuer Linens but they must be out there somewhere. Too bad we don’t get to see any of Samantha’s bed linens since I suspect they would be more interesting than plain white.
When my father died in 1982, I was suddenly in charge of the store. I was really scared. Even though I had worked at the store for 11 years at that point, I really didn’t know exactly what to do. I could sell, do basic bookkeeping, and do shipping and receiving. I always seemed to have lots of ideas to suggest to my father, but when I assumed control, I was not so sure I could successfully implement those ideas. There was no training program, no manual or written guidelines for buying, and there were things my father (pictured on the right, with his parents, Rosel and Fred, and his wife, Leonore, at the store’s opening in 1953) did that I had never done, like going to Madeira, Portugal on a buying trip.
I am the third generation of my family to run Scheuer Linens and George Matouk, Jr. (pictured on the left, with his father, George Sr.), is the third generation of his family to run Matouk. In 1929, John Matouk founded a company whose “mission was to give American homemakers ready access to the world’s finest, most luxurious linens.” My grandparents started in 1937 by selling fine linens in customers’ homes. There was no Scheuer Linens store in those days. As both companies evolved and grew, both stayed committed to having the very finest quality linens and never compromised on quality or service.
New color threads are predicted every year in our industry by several established and reputable color forecasting companies. Forecasts are made every year; sometimes they are very much the same, and sometimes they differ greatly.
The Pantone View Colour Planner for summer 2009 details seven palettes, including: Female-ism (medium pastels with a tinge of retro glamour); Classic-ism (almost devoid of color except for one medium blue accent); Independent-ism (tart, bold, and gregarious colors); Today-ism (deep, dark shades of reddish blues, and brown); Absurd-ism (combines disproportionate color hues and values); Fetish-ism (”a carnal inspiration and desire for experimentation”); and Surreal-ism (”plays with scale, combination, and expectation to create unexpected, and even strange, creations”).
Emissions from some substances used to build furniture can provoke immediate, acute reactions in some people with chemical sensitivities, but even emissions that go unnoticed can present chronic risks from long-term exposure, according to