Homestead Heads to Contract
By Carole Sloan -- Home Textiles Today, 2/20/2006
New York — Homestead Home Fashions Group has moved into the hospitality segment of the contract home textiles business, with the formation of Homestead Hospitality.
Heading the division is David Dee, who sold his David Dee & Co. hospitality furnishings business last year. For more than two years, Dee had been consulting on the hospitality business with David Greenstein, chairman of Homestead's parent, London Fog.
“With hotels pushing ahead to higher and higher levels of quality and style, there is an opportunity to do new things, and David has a great sense of style and design,” said Greenstein. “The traditional sheet suppliers want to do the same old. Sheets were a commodity — but in the last five or six years design elements have come into play.”
As the Heavenly Bed and other hotel bedding products have taken hold, he emphasized, “hotels see the bed as a real marketing tool; they're really promoting the bed and they're looking for design solutions in bedding.”
Greenstein added, “We are experienced in the design of sheeting elements for retail, and these can be interpreted for hospitality.” Key differences are the high levels of washability and fire retardant qualities.
The Homestead objective is to concentrate on the sheeting, accessory pieces and top of the bed. “It's the new age hospitality business,” Greenstein remarked, noting that many hotels have moved away from bedspreads to either duvets or triple sheet sets that are specified to be washed daily. For a number of reasons, including that “bedspreads were non-hygienic and had the look of the past,” hotels are moving away from bedspreads.
“We're concentrating on replenishment merchandise,” he noted. The sheeting products typically have a lifespan of a year to 18 months.
The company is not getting involved with the window covering segment, which involves many other performance and quality elements, he pointed out.
Currently, Homestead is working with hotel operator Intercontinental for all the Holiday Inn Express brand units, as well as with four or five other groups.
