Fall 2014 High Point Furniture Market Visit and Photos

[drcollie]

On Monday 10/20/14 I went to High Point Furniture Market for the day and made the rounds. A summary of my day....

4:20 a.m, leave my house, arrive in High Point at 8:30 a.m.

Started off at the Bradington Young Showroom, I was unable to get in despite two attempts an hour apart. I was denied entry as they have a new (ridiculous) policy that dealers have to be escorted by their Sales Rep. I refused to wait around in the lobby for more than two minutes and moved on to other showrooms, so no B-Y report this trip. For you Bradington Young fans, sorry..nothing to show you.

Stopped by Gat Greek Furniture as there are a few people that asked about it here on the forum. VERY nice people, I liked them immensely. Located in Berkeley Springs West Virginia. I would have loved to buy from them but their product is a bit too much machine-made production done for my store. If you like the look of it, then I think its very solid and well made, it just wasn't for my store is all.

Went into lots of showrooms the next few hours. Oh boy, were they hungry at Market - if you dared even lift your eyes up to look at something an order-taker with a clipboard was right on top of you. A little too aggressive overall for my preferences, I sensed some level of desperation for orders at the show and it was off-putting. A better approach in my opinion would be "Welcome, have a look around and enjoy the showroom - we're here if you have any questions". That was definitely not the tempo, however.

In the "Made in America" section of Market Square, I came across a Mom N' Pop Startup doing outdoor mahogany furniture. The workmanship is top-shelf, I'd not seen anything like this and especially at these prices. Turns out Gary, the owner and maker, was a production foreman at Century furniture and when things got bad during the Recession, he decided to start this little company and build these pieces. Best I've ever seen in the category so I bought some for the floor, though I generally don't carry outdoor furniture. "Froggy Bottom" is the name of his company. I have some photos taken of the pieces I will share as well.

Went into McKinley leather furniture and spent quite a bit of time there. Their sales rep has been trying for three years to get me to come in and carry their product. It's a smaller company, with the father having been in the business for many years and his daughter runs it now. At first skeptical, I spent quite a bit of time looking it over and its done right. Solid wood (maple, ash) and 8-way hand-tied spring decks and the best part is - at basically Bradington Young price points. I made an opening order and it will be on the floor in my store and available for me to sell nationwide to my forum customers as well. I don't have pricing info and samples yet, but will get them sometime in the next 30 days or so.
And ladies - get this - they have some small scale recliners that sit wonderfully - I'm always on the hunt for high quality motion furniture for my under 5' 6" clientele and they have it.

Last stop of the day was of course, Hancock and Moore, Councill, and Jessica Charles (all are in one showroom). They really did their showroom up even better than in years past, with Councill now mixed in with the Hancock and Moore product rather than using old props (coffee tables and end tables, etc) that were featured in the past. No one does it better than Hancock and Moore, their designs are brilliant and the execution is flawless. They really push the envelope in what can be done in furniture - especially in leather - and after seeing thousands of pieces throughout the day that were cookie-cutter, its refreshing to go into the H&M showrooms and see their unique way of doing things.

Left High Point at 6:30 p.m. and home by midnight. It was a long day!

I cannot post the links to my photos at this time, sometimes the forum goes all funky and requires a server reboot to do so. Once that is done, I'll post the photo links here..