Keeco turns up volume on sheets

-- Home Textiles Today, 10/19/2004 12:31:00 PM

NEW YORK — Keeco is putting more emphasis on its sheeting business, showcasing a front-room sheeting wall at last week's New York Home Textiles Market that was divided into five lifestyle palettes reflecting important trends throughout the showroom.

Sheets will be marketed under the in-house Initials by Keeco brand. The five lifestyles include traditional, casual, modern, global and natural world; each features a suggested palette of eight colors.Keeco now offers a color library of 82 hues and fabrications ranging from 200-count to a two-ply 750-count constructions on cotton, sateens and blends. The company is trying to look at different fabrications as well such as cotton/silk. There are sheets with dobby stripes, jacquards, solids with coordinate hems and/or embroidered hems.In other news, Keeco last spring hired Michael Roach as director of marketing from Nestle. He brings a background in consumer packaged goods and has been heading up all merchandising for Keeco since then. Roach has been integral in the development of the five key lifestyle trend groups and gotten Keeco involved in more fact-based selling that is starting to enhance placements, color direction and new product development.In addition, juvenile bedding has proven to be a huge area of growth for the company, which is focusing on a seven to early teenage boy segment with Abercrombie & Fitch- and Hawaiian-inspired looks.