Fresh colors keep sales crisp

NEW YORK — Ringing through loud and clear this spring in all facets of bath — whether it's shower curtains, towels, accessories or rugs — is the quest for a fresh, refocused color palette.

Windsor, NJ-based Habidecor is boosting its colorways within its Must rug program by more than triple its size to 60 colors from its original 17 offerings. The new hues range from clear water colors to vibrant, saturated, deep schemes. Likewise, the company's Reversible palette is being expanded to 15 colorways. Dance and New Twist are getting updated colorways as well.

The Baltic Linen Company, based in Valley Stream, NY, is "thrilled" to have a larger and newly renovated showroom of 4,600 square feet to showcase "our biggest collection ever" of bath towels, said JoAnn Wanamaker, vp of design, bath.

The company this market is introducing a total of 17 new palettes throughout its entire bath towel program, including new hues for its sculpts, floral embroideries with scalloped edges, yarn-dyed ginghams, stripe designs and solid color Turkish terries with sophisticated designs and subtle striped borders.

Lacey Mills, based in Cartersville, GA, is expanding on its nylon bath rug business with "a more glamorous approach." The new Grand Hotel collection of six heavy-weight rugs made of 100 percent nylon shag is available in a set of colorways the company calls, The Romantics Colorline — a collection of soft, "sensuous" colors like violet, haze, blush, a Wedgwood-like blue, celadon, maize, white and champagne, said Karen Townsend, design director.

Also new for Lacey is the Fresco group of bath rugs, which comes in "sun-drenched Tuscan-like colors" like citron green, daisy yellow, mist, peony pink and wisteria.

Townsend said that as it does every spring market, Lacey created a whole new palette for this year for its bath and accent rug lines.

But unlike the past, for this spring the company took a different approach to its new collections, refocusing its efforts on colors before anything else.

"We planned the colors first and then later worked on the yarns and patterns for our bath rugs," she said. "Color is very important and it's important to have a range of colors to offer because it really sets the mood. The number one criterion from consumer standpoint is color. Then comes pattern and price.

So for this spring we made a total color change."

At Cobra/Espalma, based in New York City, the new 800-gram, 30" x 54" bath towel collection titled Gemstone is made of 100 percent cotton in Brazil and comes in as many as 20 different colors.

Bursting with fruit flavors this market is New York-based Shelly's Design. Building on it its vinyl C-Mac shower curtain design, the company is adding a line of coordinating acrylic accessories in an array of fruit colors — blueberry, grape, lime, banana, strawberry and tangerine.

Marled colors in acrylic hues are setting the tone for the new Comfort Cotton collection by North Vernon, IN-based Regal Inc. The collection, made of 90 percent cotton and 10 percent acrylic, combines the use of bulky cotton loops softly blended with acrylic hues, with a four-ply yarn that offers rich color blends in black, blue, brown, burgundy and green.

New York-based Matouk's new Venus collection of Italian linen guest towels — featuring a white organdy insert and embroidered scalloped edges — comes in an expanded array of colorways, including white, ivory, blue, pink, green, lavender and yellow.

Mohawk Home of Sugar Valley, GA, is unveiling a solid-color collection utilizing Dupont filament nylon in a wide range of price points and sizes.

Finally, Atlantic Beach, NY-based Waterware Inc. is expanding this market on its molded line of Waterdrapes through the use of color, with the addition of the Blue Rain, Do Dots and Blue Bubbles designs — all made of color PVC molded with ink on the back.