Sam Hedaya expands home, table, kitchen
By Andrea Lillo -- Home Textiles Today, 11/27/2000
NEW YORK -Though the easy-care polyester Visa cloth remains its focus, Sam Hedaya Linens concentrates its product on color and texture stories for its Homewear label, and continues to expand its table linen and kitchen textiles lines with wovens and cotton-rich jacquards. The company has also added more space for its designers.
"The consumer is very sophisticated today," said Cheryl Ross, marketing director. "They're trying to fit a lifestyle and a price point."
The company offers a mix of Visa and woven patterns, most of which have coordinating kitchen textiles. The packaging is also very distinctive, Ross said, because "very often it's what draws the customer to the product."
A red, white and blue story, for example, includes an engineered retro print with an attached border called Cherry Border, as well as patterns called Sea Flags, Lighthouse and Fruit Jubilee.
The Garden collection includes Garden Delight, a woven pattern in taupe and garden green with embroidered accessories. Bordeaux has a tea-stained look and comes in blue, gold and green.
A French influence is felt with a toile Visa pattern, in green, burgundy or black on an ivory ground. The coordinating French Basket pattern has a solid white center with a black or blue basket border.
Other Visa additions include Magnolia and Clover and five new colors for the Color Blocks design.
"We're not looking to bottom feed," Ross said. "We want to add style into that category."
Getting more into holiday cloths, the company is already set for Christmas 2001. Cloths include engineered and all-over patterns, wovens with metallics and more. "If it's not going to be special, we don't bother," she said. "That's why retailers come to us."
And the company continues to grow in other areas, adding the Inn Style napery division, to develop Visa product for hotels, cruise ships and restaurants. In addition, the company was outgrowing its showroom in 295 Fifth Avenue, and so the design team moved to 1,500 square feet space in a nearby building.
"Now we have room to work," said Ross.
