Design Winners Named as Pierre Deux Expands

By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 11/26/2007 12:00:00 AM

Secaucus, N.J. —

Interior designer Lin Lee, head of Lin Lee & Associates, won first place in the Pierre Deux national "Take a Seat to Toile" designer challenge.

Her winning chair was Simply Elegant, a design using a brown and white toile with nailhead trim.

The competition challenged interior designers to create their interpretation of a fashionable French country chair featuring a Pierre Deux toile fabric using a basic Parsons chair as the base.

Ten markets were selected to participate. Designs were featured in the respective design stores/showrooms and shoppers were asked to vote. At each location 10% of the day's sales were donated to the designer's choice of charity.

Second place went to Dena Novick Hamilburg of Hamilburg Interiors, Boston, who created Toile en Haute Couture, a chair inspired by Marie Antoinette.

The 10 regional winning designs were gathered in New York earlier this month for final judging. Chairs at the judging were entered into a silent auction, with proceeds given to Aid to Artisans, a non-profit organization that helps develop opportunities for craftsmen in developing countries. At press time, six of the 10 chairs were sold. The winning chairs will be featured in a spring issue of Traditional Home magazine.

Pierre Deux also has opened a new store in Greenwich, Conn., a just under 3,000-square-foot unit styled as a house, bringing its total stores and design showrooms to 18 in the United States, according to Heather Ryan, vp sales and marketing.

The company is in the process of relocating a number of these locations: Dallas now is a 4,000-square-foot unit open to both retail and the design trade in the design district; San Francisco, to reopen Dec. 1 in a 3,500-square-foot unit on Sacramento Street; and the Madison Avenue store in New York will close. "We are in the process of looking for another Manhattan unit, and our showroom in the D&D building is working very well," Ryan added.