CHF's soft spot for hard lines

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 9/19/2003 12:00:00 AM

NEW YORK —

CHF is taking a hard line with hard lines this market, debuting hard window accessories under its mass market CHF window brand, bathroom fixtures under its Nick Muro designer bath label and some hard accessories pieces to coordinate with its OP bedding group.

A marked departure from the norm? Not exactly. The new lines are an extension of CHF's core strategy of driving basic fashion businesses in window, bath and bedding by adding on margin-enhancing accessories

Among the introductions will be CHF-branded window, hardware — leveraging off the last market's launch of decorative hardware under CHF's up-market Peri brand. The mass-oriented collection will include eight design styles in five types of finish: white-wash, black, gold, brushed nickel and verdigris. Retails begin at $14.99.

The year-old Nick Munro bath collection will also harden up with numerous additions.

Finally, the OP beach lifestyle line will had two new hard accessory skus: string lights and door beads.

"We've been dabbling with some mosquito nets, and they're doing exceptionally well for us. These are add-ons," said Beverly Chapman, product manager, bedding.

Those introductions aside, CHF is pursuing plenty of expansion with the soft stuff.

CHF brand window — the mass market line — is pulling into its assortment many of the elegant looks that have driven business in Peri window coverings. New constructions include pencil pleating on a linen-look netted sheer, a heat-transfer pattern on linen-like netting with subtle pearl accents, and an engineered embroidery attachment to a netted panel taken from an old Swiss document.

"We hadn't done a lot of feminine looks and Victorian looks in CHF window before," said Janet Barragan, vp of design, window fashions.

With romantic looks leading the way in Peri, the brand's window division will devote a room to elegant vintage designs this market, including jacquards, embroideries, linens, burnouts and crochet looks.

The Nick Munro collection will expand into bedding this market with silk comforter covers and coordinate quilts. The debut pattern of grosgrain ribbon covers will be available in five colorways. The collection also adds a new towel sku — 14 pounds, 27" x 52" — in two striped colorways.

In Loft Style, the contemporary 200-count bed-in-a-bag collection launched last market, CHF will expand on margin-boosting accessories. It also will add coordinated embroidered quilts whose patterns are unique to each bedding design as well as sherpa throws, sherpa dec pillows, faux fur throws, patterned pop-up hampers and back rests.

"Back rests are a huge coordinate for us," said Chapman.

Reflections, the company's upper-end tweeners line using 180-count sheets and highly embellished top-of-bed constructions, is going textural this season. A new Sherpa design is available in four colors: hot pink, baby pink, sky blue and moss green. The collection also includes a bed with appliqued crochet pieces and another, Shagadelic, that features clipped high-twist threads rippling over a tie-dye print ground. The glow-in-the-dark Robots bed is embellished with vinyl and mylar pieces.

In CHF juvenile, the company is introducing a juvenile bath line built around eight patterns, some of them coordinates to CHF's juvenile bedding offers and others that stand alone as their own collections. Components include shower curtains, patterned and sculpted bath rugs, and resin accessories.

On the bedding side, "we are going back to our roots in juvenile, which is opening-price-point-comforters, sheets and quilts," Chapman said. Designs cover all the bases of kid-friendly looks — camouflage, dinosaurs, sports, ballerina, butterflies, pretty pinks, paisley patchwork and bright zig-zags. Top of bed is available in comforters and coordinating quilts.

"I do believe the quilt customer and comforter customer are the same," Chapman said. "They buy one for the winter and one for the summer."