November Trip to Hancock & Moore Factory

[sarahc]

I had high hopes for my first trip to the Hancock & Moore factory and it did not disappoint. I spent 6 1/2 hours with Phil Brown, the President of the company, and Tonja Morrison, their Director of Marketing, touring the factory and talking shop.

I was prepared to be a little overwhelmed, but was actually speechless at some points - the work that the artisans and craftsmen are able to do by hand is absolutely astonishing. Phil asked me what surprised me the most during my visit and while it sounds cliché, I had to say that it was the amount of detail that goes into creating one piece of furniture. Approximately 17 - 20 different pairs of hands touch ONE piece of furniture to bring it to life. I'm so used to seeing videos of assembly lines cranking out product that it was quite astonishing to see such high quality and precise work being done by hand.

My tour started with a crash course in leather education - Phil has been working in the leather upholstery industry for decades and sources all of the leather Hancock & Moore uses. A fun fact for all of my fashionistas out there - the leathers that designer handbags are made out of are from the same leather vendors that fine furniture is upholstered from - except one Chanel handbag can be twice the cost of a H&M sofa! Makes you think twice about splurging on a purse when you could have an entire new sofa.

Hancock & Moore has one of the largest leather inventories available for fine furniture. They are currently working on a new receiving program to help streamline their leather inventory, and it was pretty wild to see the sheer amount of hides stored throughout the factory. I learned that it takes approximately 6 - 8 hides (depending on how much of the hide is considered quality enough for upholstering) to create just one sofa. There are about 400 leathers available at Hancock & Moore, and they are constantly adding new varieties to their offerings. Right now, they said that greys, taupes, beiges, and blues are their most popular leathers, which is consistent with what we have been seeing in the store.