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Accents add flavor to the latest market

Bedroom sets? Blah.

Dining room tables? Ta-ta.

Sure, traditional big-ticket buys abounded at the High Point Market last week.

But the real fun was in the "accents" and accessories — small pieces from corner tables to lamps that shoppers can use to spice up their living space.

Take a walk through the top sellers in the Pulaski Furniture showroom, and you’d have found a collection of chests and tables in some bold colors and more standout styles. An antiqued-looking chest came dressed in turquoise, while another set of drawers came with mirrored fronts and a silvery finish.

At Hooker Furniture, you would have heard about color — on hand-painted pieces with a textured finish, ornate knobs or floral motifs.

"Our whole philosophy with accent furnishings is how much personality, how much character, can you pack into a piece," said Kim Shaver, Hooker’s vice president of marketing communications.

"It’s items that have a story and a look of their own and a lot of function," she added.

They also have lower price tags, making accents a bit more palatable to consumers who might be suffering the fallout of the current credit crunch.

Accent pieces have been hot buys at Market for years, but the nationwide housing slump seems to have given these individual furnishings an added emphasis this time around.

"The retailer’s job is to understand the world view and lifestyle of consumers who may be putting more of their discretionary dollars into their gas tanks, and perhaps they’re a little skittish," said Ivan Saul Cutler, a Greensboro blogger who tracks the furniture industry at insidefurniture.com.

That means consumers could see more hype around smaller pieces when last week’s Market styles hit store floors in the first quarter of next year.

Retailers know shoppers who can’t stomach spending thousands of dollars on a new living room still might buy one distinctive item to bring flavor back to a stale layout.

It’s like buying a tie to give an old suit a new sheen.

"We do expect that item business is going to get more important," said Shaver, who spent the week working Hooker’s showroom.

That’s not to say big purchases are out, though, particularly in the luxury market where consumers have more money to spend. But the emphasis on smaller pieces likely will trickle down from buyers to shoppers in coming months.

Accents aside, what else will consumers see coming from the most recent market?

Well, here’s a rundown of a few trends and hot topics from the showroom floors:

• The buzzword is "MoTra," said Cutler, and it represents a blend of modern and traditional styles in furniture.

"Rules are made to be broken," he said, "so you can take your cherished items and mix contemporary with traditional. This has always existed, but now it’s really in vogue."

• Office furniture continues to move from the merely useful to the aesthetic, as companies produce pieces you could place anywhere in your house.

That’s a trend noted by Stefan Wille, president of market research group AKTRIN Furniture Information Center. And it’s apparent in pieces like flip-top desks, decorative wooden cabinets with file drawers and mini secretary desks that masquerade as cabinets.

• Storage was huge this Market, with furniture makers cramming odd cabinets, drawers and shelves inside armoires, dressers, sideboards and desks. But, Wille said, the stress on storage — best-suited to apartment or condo living — might not be a long-term thing.

"I don’t think the current credit crunch and the decline in the housing market will lead, necessarily, to a trend toward this kind of multi-purpose furniture," he said, "because everybody hopes that we will get out of this current crunch."

• Customized furniture and pieces built to hold televisions and gadgets also abounded. Pulaski, for example, offered taller TV stands as part of its bedroom sets, as well as furnishings with stations to charge your iPod, BlackBerry, cell phone and other gadgets.

Tanger grows retail plans

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers seems to be progressing in its plans for a major retail and residential project in Mebane.

The Greensboro-based outlet company got approval from Mebane city officials last week to tack about 250,000 square feet onto its 52-acre potential development along Interstate 40/85.

The total retail project could comprise 550,000 square feet, as part of a much larger revamp of the old Arrowhead golf course property for homes and a portion of Alamance Regional Medical Center.

Tanger’s development there could contain some of the same names — Coach, Nine West, Gap — found at the company’s other outlet centers, including locations in Blowing Rock and Nags Head.

Do you have retail news for Michelle Jarboe? Call 373-7075 or send e-mail to mjarboe@news-record.com