Ann Gish preps retail store

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 12/15/2010 2:28:09 PM

New York - Ann Gish Inc., the luxury linens designer/supplier, will open a retail store here and change its marketing strategy dramatically in 2011.

The company no longer is represented in sales by Codarus. Its sales efforts now are being headed by Anne Maas, formerly of Robb & Stucky, who will lead the newly forming sales team, said Ann Gish, president.

New sales reps are Kathy Stafford for West Florida, Sebum Bass for the Carolinas and Adriana Riddle for Mexico. The company will exhibit in high-end temporary exhibition spaces at HD Home in Atlanta, Accent on Design in New York, Home Finds in Dallas, and Interhall in High Point, N.C.

The company's new facilities here will include a retail store, wholesale showroom, and design studio at 150 Fifth Avenue - a landmark building - on the southwest corner of 20th Street and Fifth Avenue. The space is about 4,000 square feet on the street floor for the retail store, and almost 3,000 square feet in the basement for storage.

The store will not be a typical linen store, Gish commented.

"I'm excited to be able to buy things for a linens store my way - with special furniture pieces, case goods for bedrooms, lighting, art work and decorative accessories," she said. "The store will be a reflection of the individual - I'm going to put in pieces that I love" and that point of view also will be expressed in the showroom. In years past, Gish operated retail stores in addition to her wholesale collections at Coral Gables, Fla. and on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, Fla.

She operated a leased department at nearby ABC Carpet & Home until about three years ago.

The new facility is expected to open in mid to late spring 2011. The company warehouse will remain at 599 11th Avenue here.