You push aside your Banana Republic twill shower curtain,
step onto a Tommy Hilfiger bath mat and dry off with a long
Ralph Lauren towel; you brush your teeth and rinse with water
held in a BR tumbler; you sneak seven more minutes of sleep
before work, slipping between steel-blue Nautica sheets and
a floral-print Tommy comforter. Then you get dressed in Bananatommyralph
wear and leave the house that you bought alone but needed
the help of several clothes designers to furnish.
It may sound horrifyingly like that brand-obssesed novel
American Psycho, but if the aforementioned companies
have their way, this scene will soon be much closer to fact
than fiction.
Suddenly, middle-shelf clothing designers such as Calvin
Klein, Nautica, Banana Republic and Tommy Hilfiger have
purposefully stepped out of America's closets and into our
bathrooms, kitchens and bedrooms. These brands and others
are practically spraining ligaments as they wrestle one
another for footing in the quickly expanding home-goods
industry.
Bathroom and bedding goods began rolling into Meier &
Frank as part of the Tommy Hilfiger Home line in the summer
of 1998. Betsy Schaper, the public-relations director for
Tommy Hilfiger Home, says TH has seen double-digit increases
in sales each season since the launch of the line. The company
is now developing flatware, furniture, wallpaper and even
fabrics to be sold by the yard. The market for these goods
isn't tough to identify: a preppily checkered pillowcase
for the male teen; a wholesome, flowery comforter for his
sister; and khaki-colored sheets for everyone.
"Designers have always had a desire to create a lifestyle
line," Schaper says. "It's a natural extension for a designer
after establishing their line to want to extend into the
home."
Lifestyle is the décor industry's glowing
green light. Where a person's lifestyle might have once
suggested only that they preferred scotch to vodka, now
the term is used as fodder for marketers wanting to dress
you head to toe--and do the same to your house. Are you
a chino person? Do you lead a chino lifestyle? If you buy
pants from Banana Republic, the company believes, your lifestyle
dictates that you would be inclined to drink from a decidedly
uncomplicated BR glass. Or, if you dress in Calvin Klein's
charcoals and blacks, perhaps you'd care to sleep among
similarly hued bed covers.
One need look no farther than the Banana Republic Web site
(www.bananarepublic.com)
to see this line of thinking hard at work. Just as it has
longed to dress us all in Desert Shield leisure wear, Banana
Republic has been a tiger in seeking brand ubiquity in your
house. Its site aggressively displays page after page of
furnishings. In some instances--the chino duvet or the twill
shower curtain come to mind--it appears the company has
simply taken leftover trousers and stitched them into different
patterns. But BR also offers a cashmere eye mask, a bedside
carafe plus tumblers, towels, decanters, pillows, ceramic
plates, serving utensils, napkins, shower gel and lip balm;
the items are available at reasonable prices and manufactured
with the dull simplicity of one of the brand's wool jerseys.
Not bad for an outfit that was peddling a few urban safari
shirts before the Gap bought the company in 1983. So far,
not many of BR's home goods are available to Portlanders
outside the virtual realm--the Pioneer Square outpost can
sell you a candle or two--but a flagship store scheduled
to open next October in the Fox Tower will bring BR's house
party to town.
"A couple years ago, customers would come into our store
and comment on the fixtures and tables we used to display
the clothes," explains Kim Sobel, Banana Republic senior
communications manager. "From the customers' interest in
these things, we began developing the home line. It's just
a way of reinforcing that Banana Republic is a lifestyle
brand."
The market for such a brand seems to be expanding.
"I think what has impacted the industry is that, A, more
people are buying homes and then, B, those people are buying
for the home," Tommy Hilfiger's Schaper notes. "And,
of course, more women are buying houses. All that is part
of the equation."
In October, The New York Times reported that close
to 57 percent of single women now own homes. The article
related that "women living alone, or who are single heads
of household, increased as a share of total home buyers,
from 10 percent in 1985 to 15 percent in 1997."
Figures of this sort leave designers like Tommy eyeing
the home-furnishings industry the way sailors ogle barfly
babes at a port-town dive.
While in town this October to promote Freedom, his new
fragrance, Tommy Hilfiger told WW that he didn't
want to be known as just a clothes designer. Partly
to keep up with the Laurens, partly out of a desire to ratchet
up a brand's hold on our lives, designers now mimic the
multi-tasking entertainment types they hang with. So while
Jewel evolves into a singer/poet/thespian, Hilfiger lights
out for designer/parfumeur/decorator éclat.
When the dust from the home-buying frenzy settles, it is
likely that companies will find success selling household
goods--to customers already interested in their clothes.
But it is doubtful that more thrifty or savvy consumers
will suddenly consider a chino duvet a must-have.
Laura Rittall, for one, isn't buying the new linen league.
A homeless-family advocate with the experimental-housing
project Richmond Place, Rittall questions many of the new
home goods. A self-described "hardcore recycler," Rittall
is more likely to furnish the Northeast house she bought
alone a year and a half ago with Goodwill tables, Fred Meyer
bath mats and a little ingenuity. She uses an old refrigerator
as shelving for her cookbooks.
"When you buy a new place, it's your dream home," Rittall
says. "I felt like for me it was an opportunity to nest,
to build my version of a space."
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Willamette Week | originally
published December 1,
1999
|
