Tessile formally introduces at market

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 4/21/2003 12:00:00 AM

NEW YORK —

Formality, or something comfortably less so, but always with a soothing elegance, capped the introductions at the Tessile 295 showroom during spring market.

On one end of the spectrum was the formality of lace, linen and sateen, one hallmark of Tessile's designs, commonly found in its tabletop business. But this time something more was added, bringing a more relaxed feel to the product, particularly in bed, according to Towner Lapp, national sales manager.

"For this market, we've aligned our groups of quilts in three different collections," Lapp explained. "The Adirondack collection, with more of an outdoor theme; the Comfort collection, which is traditional; then another called Cambridge, using the contemporary styles. We're grouping them in different areas so we can tell a story in each and obviously price point it at different levels as well."

Adirondack might offer the perfect top of bed patterns for a mountain cabin or country estate — or a bedroom that just feels that way. All four patterns in the collection make use of appliquéd velvet and corduroy.

For example, Falling Leaves, the apparent lead to the collection, features a crazy quilt center on a base of corduroy and velvet. Matching decorative pillows and chenille throws help round out the offering.

The other Adirondack patterns include Velvet Star; Old Forge, a Navajo Indian pattern; and Saranac, which features fir trees. All are in earthtone colorways.

The other collections consist of three styles each.

In Cambridge, for example, Patrice presented a youngish, very light and airy, soft rosebud print pattern. And Cheshire was in the Comfort collection, a more traditional block pattern.

All of the quilts were generally in a $79 to $99 range for full/queen size in open stock, Lapp said. Sets, where available, ranged from $99 to perhaps as high as $129, retail.