“You can never go wrong to follow what’s going on with traditional upholstered furniture,” said Yeeling. “Consumers shop in regular furniture stores a lot, so they are familiar with what is available in regular furniture–so when they see the same fabrics in a futon shop, they pick it right away. People like their futons to match their other furniture. Usually the futon is not the main piece, so it needs to match the others.”
The real difference between the traditional upholstery world and the futon cover world is prints. Prints are hardly as common in the rest of the furniture market as they are in futon covers.
“What people are buying is changing,” said Hammer. “The trend in traditional upholstery is solid colors. We offer samples side by side–the print next to the solid–and almost every time the futon customer buys the print. However, we are certainly selling more solids now than in the past.”
“Most futon cover buyers still put a busy pattern with solid pillows,” said Lynn Martin at Cotton Works in Albany, Ga. “I have tried to reverse that trend. You don’t see a lot of busy patterns for traditional sofas.”
Rath has a similar desire for change. “When choosing our futon covers, I’m trying to introduce new looks, trying to be more like traditional furniture.” She looks for
materials that go against the grain of stereotypical “futon” fabrics: busy patterns and bright colors.
One plausible explanation for the pervasiveness of prints in the futon cover market is the usefulness of a heavily patterned futon cover for hiding stains and signs of wear. “Because futon buyers use them as couches and as beds, the futon can be in use 24/7,” said David Wiener at Life Style Covers in Queens, N.Y. “Therefore, it’s important for a futon cover to have hiding ability.”
Another interesting idea is the duality of the target futon market. “When customers see, for example, a lot of plaid in the furniture stores, then they see a similar cover in a futon store, it legitimizes the futon product because it looks like what they’ve seen in a traditional store,” said Hammer. “So we do sell what furniture sells, but we also sell what furniture can’t sell–the wild and funky futon covers. We have both customers.”
Fashion industry
Futons are wearing the same things as their owners: pink, leather, bouclé, retro prints, corduroy.
“Futon covers are a fashion item like clothing because they can be updated more easily than upholstered items,” said Taylor. “Like the fashion industry, futon consumers can be more ‘trendy’ in their pattern choices, using more bold or eclectic patterns and daring colors. Patterns can be hard to live with for long periods of time, so you generally tend to see them more within fashion and futon covers.”
McCarthy said that following clothing trends “is especially important in fabrics chosen for foam furniture and beanbags–the younger people who are buying those items like their furniture to match the clothes they’re wearing.”
A wildly popular fashion item we have yet to see on a futon is shearling. UGG®, the sheepskin boot from Australia, started a frenzy for shearling footwear that has trickled all the way down to Wal-Mart. Throw pillows done in faux shearling have started to crop up, and it can’t be long before this trend appears in upholstery and futon covers as well.
Choosing fabric for futon cover
Futon cover manufacturers and retailers stay abreast of the trends by attending the
markets (furniture shows, gift shows, fabric shows); reading shelter magazines, furniture
publications and fashion magazines; listening to color forecasters; hearing from their customers; and drawing on their own innate creativity.
Along with examining publications like “Furniture Style,” “HFN,” “Metropolitan Life” and “Better Homes and Gardens,” Rath also buys decorating books. She feels these more permanent publications help her balance out what is trendy with what is classical and will last.
Lorrie Mello at Providence Futon, a retail store, likes to refer to www.accessorymerchandising.com, which is connected with “Furniture Style” magazine.
Wiener seeks feedback from futon retailers when choosing which covers to carry. “The retailers reflect what the consumer wants,” he said.
The medium itself–cloth–can be the inspiration for a new form of expression. “Sometimes it‘s a yarn that‘s inspiring,” said Taylor, “like hemp yarns, or chenille yarn that has been washed, a gold thread in the pattern. Other times the construction of the pattern is intriguing. Some examples are pocket weaves that create a ‘puckered’ look, microfibers laminated onto knits to create an animal skin look and velvets that change color with the light. When you look at thousands of fabrics, it's the small differences that add up to make some fabrics more unique than others.”
Other futon manufacturers trust their instincts. ”When I go to fabric market, I know what I like when I see it,” said SIS Futon cover’s Hammer. Occasionally she will buy something she doesn’t like yet recognizes will appeal to a lot of people, but most of the time she picks what appeals to her. “To choose a fabric, I have to love it,” she said.
III. STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
“Society is founded upon cloth.”
-Thomas Carlyle