JLA Rugs Widens Holiday Line

By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 12/17/2007 12:00:00 AM

New York —

JLA Rugs, which last month marked its first year, has created its second generation of Santas, reindeers, penguins and Christmas trees for two new holiday accent rug constructions.

The first line — with 25 washable hand-hooked rug patterns and six washable printed acrylic patterns — launched when JLA Home's rug unit formed in November 2006.

Gary Shafran, vp, explained: “Last year it was harder to do this since we started in November. We showed most of our Christmas rugs at the February market and we did get some nice size orders. But for this year, we were able to start selling them in November with everything we needed ready — catalog, pricing and samples — and we've been able to go out there and do previews with major retailers.”

The two new constructions: a higher-end line of machine-washable hand-tufted and hand-carved rugs in soft acrylic yarn; and an opening price-point machine-washable printed nylon with latex backing.

JLA Rugs positions the accent group under a “good-better-best” bracket:

• “Good” rugs include nylon printed latex-backed rugs set to retail for less than $9.99 and the printed acrylic pieces poised for a $9.99 ticket;

• A hooked line for specialty and some department stores;

• The “best” set is the tufted collection — “this will be a step up from a basic hook rug,” Shafran said.

Designs include 20 from last year — 10 printed acrylic and 10 nylon – and 50 new models that also include several made for pet uses — the latter available in hooked rug styles.

“We've taken some designs that have done very well within our pet rug offerings and we've changed the colors and some of the themes for Christmas,” Shafran said. One example:a dog design with the pet wearing a Santa hat on a ground in red, green and gold.