WestPoint Home's $10 Mil spend

Home Textiles Today Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 3/19/2013 11:34:47 AM

At the New York Market - WestPoint Home is investing in manufacturing again, with work already under way to boost capacity at its bedding facility in Bahrain.
WestPoint is self-funding the $10 million capital expenditure, according to Norman Savaria, president and ceo. "There's a lot more confidence in what's going on in the plant and the results we're getting there," he said.
The company is converting to compact cotton spinning, which will boost capacity by 15% and expand the range of yarns it can create. WestPoint is also expanding embroidery capacity by 50% and adding brushing and peaching equipment. Finally, the screen process is being converted from chemical to high water pressure. All work is expected to be complete by the end of the third quarter.
In the meantime, it's New York Home Fashions Market and WestPoint is celebrating 200 years of history that stretches back to the founding of the J.P. Stephens mill the company acquired many years ago. Among the high points in a showroom bursting with new product this week:
• The Art of Martex Designer Series, leveraging a legacy WestPoint brand, launches with coordinate bedding and bath collections from Collier Campbell and Jill Rosenwald Studio. Going forward, additional designers will be featured under the brand.
• Seduction, keying off the interest in women's sensuality sparked by "Fifth Shades of Gray," the collection features 500-count Supima sateen in bedding and extremely low-twist yarns in bath - with a palette that ranges from bridal to sultry.
• Portico, the sustainable brand of bedding and bath WestPoint launched last fall, has been completely overhauled, shifting out of hotel-style designs to focus on quality layered fabrics.
WestPoint continues to add to Modern Living, the lifestyle-oriented fashion bedding collection it unveiled a year ago.
"The world is changing with the dot-coms," said Taran Chernin, executive vp and chief merchandising officer, who noted ecommerce retailers embrace brands readily.
Modern Living has also served as an incubator of WestPoint's private-label work, she said. "It's taken us from an execution vendor to a design vendor." 

WestPoint’s Seduction line includes extremely low-twist towels as well as a bedding lifestyle story.