Wide variety of materials drive new accessories, lamps

-- Home Textiles Today, 12/4/2000 12:00:00 AM

In accessories and lamps, the story was as much the mix of materials as the design statements themselves.

Leather appeared to be sweeping across the terrain in lamps, boxes and a host of other accessory items.

For many, it was a "beyond Hemingway" situation, a reference to the stunning success of the Ernest Hemingway Collection at Thomasville and the spin-off of a separate non-furniture showroom in High Point. For some vendors the look moved to north Africa or the Caribbean with hammered metals, faux jewel embellishments and a somewhat more primitive effect.

But to many lamp and accessories vendors, the dressed up look sweeping the furniture market was their path to follow. Walker Mirrors, Royal Doulton's licensee, introduced Langley, an impressive 42-inch round mirror with leaves and square forms from the 1896 Royal Doulton sketchbook to coordinate with the debut of Royal Doulton furniture from Avillion.

Interlude mixed wood and brass in a series of boxes with a West Indies flavor with screen inserts.

An imposing lamp, 36 inches high overall, from Frederick Cooper reflects the North African influence with a hand-hammered rustic copper urn base on a double-tiered wood mounting.

Raymond Waites puts his own exotic touch on the animal craze with a mirror for Framed Picture Enterprises covered in faux tortoise in a sunburst accented with marble balls at the edge of the sunburst.