Panache moves to larger showroom

Staff to move to another space in six to 12 months

By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 6/3/2002 12:00:00 AM

NEW YORK —

After barely two years at its current 19th-floor showroom at 230 Fifth Avenue, upscale bath product importer Panache For The Home is moving again, this time to a larger showroom across the hall, to keep up with its continuing growth.

"I'm moving again because I keep growing," Norman Harris, president and ceo, told Home Textiles Today. "Business is going very well."

When the three-year-old company was first established, Panache opened its first showroom in the lobby of 230 Fifth Ave. Soon after, to accommodate rapid growth, it moved upstairs to its current 640-square-foot space, and it leased a smaller space of 387 square feet across the hall to showcase its larger bath accessories and bathroom furniture pieces.

When a larger space of 774 square feet, located across the hall from the company's smaller showroom, became available, and Harris snatched it up.

In the next eight weeks he expects to have all renovations — new carpeting, lighting, shelving and displays and the tearing down of the wall dividing the two spaces — done and to be completely moved in to the new space, which will total 1,161 square feet in size.

Panache currently supplies bath accessories and shower curtains from China and throughout Asia. It expects to add embellished towels to its assortment by October for the New York Home Textiles market.

Because growth continues for his company, Harris expects soon to have to find a new space for his administrative offices, which are currently housed at the showroom.

"Right now we are 80 percent showroom and 20 percent offices, but over the next six to 12 months I am going to have to move myself and my staff out to another space to make this space only a showroom for all of our products," he said

Panache recently added stonewear tabletop to its assortment. The company held a soft launch of the product — produced in China by one of Panache's existing bath accessory suppliers — in late April during the New York Tabletop market. While most of Panache's showroom space is devoted to bath products, Harris said that for the next tabletop market event in late October he intends to more aggressively display and promote his new tabletop line.