JLA Rugs Roll Out

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 2/14/2007 12:00:00 AM

At the New York Market — JLA Rugs made its debut this market with soft floor coverings for all over the house.

At the forefront are area rugs sizes in a tufted high-low construction, available in modified acrylic and 100% wool.

Design inspiration stems from JLA Home's archive of about 600 fabrics, many of which are employed in the company's core line — bedding coordinates.

"We're using the company's resources," explained Gary Shafran, vp of the rug division. "We're getting involved with the fabrics and the bedding to get into their sales and coordinate."

Looking to cross-pollinate, JLA Rugs has come up with a new marketing idea that offers runners and rectangular rugs — packaged in clear plastic bags with handles and sized as twin/full, queen and king — to coordinate in pattern and size with existing bedding collections.

The runners are made of modified acrylic and measure 24-by-76. They are set to retail for $59.99 for a queen size. The rectangular rugs are wool and hooked and start as 30-by-54 for a twin/full size, which is set to retail for $39.99.

"These are handmade rugs at machine-made prices," Shafran said.

The 5-by-8 area rugs, independent of bedding coordinates, are on a made-to-order basis.

The rug division was also touched by the company's MicroTec push this market. A collection of polypropylene accent rugs employ this new technology. The result is a soft pile rug with a foam insert and a non-skid backing.

For the holidays, there are screen printed and hand-carved varieties in six Christmas patterns. They hit a $9.99 retail price point.

Up a notch from there are the washable hooked hand-carved and yarn-dyed accent rugs in many patterns, from holiday to roosters, coffee, fruits and vegetable and other popular kitchen themes. A 2-by-3 is priced at $19.99

In this construction, a jumbo size — 24-by-40 — as a rectangle or hearth shape is set at $29.99.

Bath rug offerings come in cotton, Egyptian cotton, and blends of cotton and bamboo.

And finally, printed bamboo rugs with canvas solid-colored borders come in all accent and area rug sizes.