On Model Homes and Heritage Wallpaper

Plus groovy restaurants, more retailer bankruptcy, and furniture from your favorite consumer brand family.

Hello readers! This week I got a dry pedicure at Milk & Honey’s spa in Gold Coast. They use hot towels and oils rather than water and I found the experience luxurious. My technician was incredibly knowledgeable and knows a great podiatrist if I ever should need one (I probably will- over a decade of ballet classes really did a number on my feet). I also watched Style Wars on Criterion, which has been in my queue forever. Anyway, there was some pretty buzzy news in the home space this week-

Pierre Frey Acquires Zuber Wallpaper

Sources are saying the deal was done “quickly” and financial details have not been made public. But, according to Frey, the concerns at play were as much cultural as financial. Makes sense. Zuber is the world’s oldest wallpaper manufacturer- founded in 1767. The company famously still uses original hand-carved wooden blocks to create versions of many of its papers. I can’t help but wax poetic about this stuff. Pierre Frey is a family-owned business itself and has acquired many luxury brands with similar clout, like La Manach and Boussac. Speaking of impossibly chic French heritage brands, have any of them ever considered collaborating with Cire Trudon?

Home Builders + Furniture Brands = Startup Gold   

Mine, a company that uses model homes as shoppable furniture showrooms, currently claims 1,200 destinations in the US and is looking for more. The founder, Eoin Harrington (formerly RH’s senior vice president of innovation) raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from investors and launched the company in 2019. This is interesting! When I plugged in my parents' suburban zip code, 6 different showrooms popped up. I may need to take a field trip… 

Boll & Branch starts a Furniture Line

Backed by Silas Capital. They also own Hatch, Ilia, Cake, and Sakara. Boll and Branch doing furniture is a logical play into cornering all the home industries. I’m sticking a pin in Silas Capital because buying something from each of their companies in a single shopping spree- Sakara’s meal plan, Ilia’s retinol cream, the Boll & Branch duvet, Hatch’s restore lamp, etc.- makes perfect sense. We love a diversified yet cohesive portfolio! 

Z Gallerie Declares Bankruptcy

Z Gallerie, the Los Angeles-based contemporary furniture retailer, has filed for Chapter 11, citing liabilities between $50 million and $100 million. Z Gallerie is one of many furniture companies that has run into hardship this year, but honestly? This one I could see getting a buyer. I say this because when I worked in residential interior design, the clients who liked Z Gallerie were die hard fans and a specific type of consumer. 

Cool Restaurants Look Crazy Now

“Monochromatic, Pac-Man yellow interiors; 3-foot-long pepper mills; bird-shaped glassware; and a wild boar statue outfitted with a glowing neon necklace are just a few of the totems of the maximalist design taking hold at restaurants nationwide.” writes Laura Nielson on Eater. “I think going to dinner has shifted from a part of one’s night out, to the entire night out,” Shuggie’s co-owner Kayla Abe explained to Nielson, “People look to dining out as their main form of entertainment.” On a personal note, I’m going to New York in February and keep getting restaurant recommendations for Bad Roman, which is giving major Cheesecake Factory vibes based on what I’ve seen through the internet and social media (I’m not saying this is a bad thing- I’ve personally never had a bad meal at the Cheesecake Factory). I do not think that kitschy restaurant design is a novel idea, as anyone who’s been to an establishment like Cheesecake Factory or Rainforest Cafe can attest. However, the Instagramification of spaces in this moment is worth considering in the larger cultural picture.

Bye for now! X