With the Home Furnishings Market Poised to Exceed $1 Trillion, Fashion Brands Are Looking to Cash In

A spate of recent home launches from Dior, Gucci, Loewe, and more reveals a red-hot market for high-fashion home furnishings—one that is only expected to grow

Luxury clothing labels are wandering from the wardrobe into the living room. Louis Vuitton is selling swing chairs. Gucci offers candleholders that it recommends repurposing as flowerpots. Hermès does wallpaper. These offerings go beyond the interdisciplinary experimenting that attention-seeking, novelty-loving fashion brands often do. Perhaps that’s because home decor is an exciting market in its own right, experts point out. The global home furnishings market is growing “significantly faster” than the fashion market, according to Petah Marian, senior editor at WGSN Insight, a consumer trend forecasting group. WGSN estimates that the former will balloon from $730 billion in 2017 to more than $1 trillion by 2025.

New collections mirror this phenomenon: For its most recent range, Loewe commissioned international artisans to make baskets in the LVMH-owned brand’s signature leather. Dior, meanwhile, has enlisted Milan-based Dimore Studio to create 14 objects that are currently available via special order only, including a gold-and-steel candelabra and a rattan umbrella stand wrapped in gold-plated brass and black metal trim.

As ever, capsule collections like these extend the awareness of a brand. “Fashion has done such a good job of creating identities and moods through their ad campaigns and social media,” says Raffaella Vignatelli, CEO of Luxury Living Group, which designs, produces, and distributes furniture under license for Fendi and Trussardi. “Being able to offer their clients a way to expand that lifestyle concept beyond clothes makes perfect sense.” By populating its new three-story London boutique with own-brand objects, for example, Loewe makes the experience of shopping there all the more focused.

via@architecturaldigest

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