New York—For nearly 50 years the Laura Ashley brand has been one of the leading names in interior and personal fashion. While her name is already associated with flooring through a carpet licensing agreement with Beaulieu of America, it took a major step in home design earlier this month with the introduction of a hard surface program in conjunction with Witex USA. At an unveiling to its Northeast distributors and their select customers here, Witex introduced a complete Laura Ashley hard surface program including laminate, hardwood and ceramic products, and a total merchandising package. Similar unveilings have been taking place around the country.

Though the Witex/Laura Ashley deal was originally announced earlier this year ( FCNews, May 13/20), this is the first offering from the new partnership. Steve Newman, president and CEO of Witex, said it took more than eight months to get the products and displays together. The mill and Laura Ashley worked hand-in-hand to ensure everything in the program fit into the designer’s unique style and integrity. “Every product in the Laura Ashley collection is unique and exclusive to the brand,” he said. “These are not existing Witex products with a private label attached to them. They were created specifically for this program so as to give dealers the maximum profit potential.”

In fact, Newman noted, the entire concept was developed to not only reflect the high value and quality of the Laura Ashley image, but to allow dealers to leverage the brand’s power to its highest degree. The reason is, consumer research has shown the Laura Ashley name ranks among the top of fashion brands worldwide, enjoying a high level of customer awareness regardless of the product category. “Laura Ashley is strictly a women’s brand,” he said, “known by females young and old around the world for products ranging from scarves to bedspreads to comforters to a multitude of home furnishings.”

To confirm this, Witex sponsored a variety of consumer focus groups. During these meetings, Newman explained, “we put forth a number of brands and Laura Ashley came up very favorable within our targeted age group, 27 to 55, and spanned all demographics. The qualities or terms that kept coming up from consumers about the name was longevity, performance, value, quality and trust.” These attributes, he added, combined with market research, show how the trend for home furnishings is to better quality goods and recognizable names. “Surveys tell us that consumers are willing to invest in their homes and to step up to better quality. They are seeking quality attributable to brands they can identify with and trust. “Therefore,” Newman continued, “from a business perspective, quality brands like Laura Ashley immediately translate to higher margins on the showroom floor and to higher profit along the entire distribution chain.”

This is shown by who the typical Laura Ashley customer is: informed and quality driven; often upper to middle class; has a flair for style and design; brand conscious, and is willing to pay more for the brands she wants. The products were designed to meet these attributes and work together through an extensive line of coordinating accessory pieces to ensure a complete custom Laura Ashley-look. In laminates, the latest wood and tile designs are featured with an embossed surface texture. Each product features a patented glueless installation system and comes with a pre-applied sound deadening backing. The nine engineered wood products in the Laura Ashley Home collection also feature a glueless installation method. Four classic designs—Natural Maple, Natural Oak, Golden Oak and Gunstock Oak—and five exotics—Tali, Iroko, Jatoba and a light and dark Bamboo—make up the line.

The ceramic tile component of the program includes a wide variety of large and small formats, wall tiles, borders, inserts, trims, listellos and a full palette of complementary grout colors. Each tile is actually porcelain, making them appropriate for indoor or outdoor installations. Holding this together is the custom-made Laura Ashley display. The three-sectioned unit does more than just show the products. It was created after months of consumer and dealer input in order to better leverage the brand. “We thoroughly went over everything,” Newman explained, “from the height products are display at to the weight of each sample. In addition, the display is very flexible in how a dealer wants to set it up.”

While the unit works best with each section together as a store-in-a-store concept, the sections can be broken up by category. “It was really designed to be a boutique concept since everything works together,” he said. “But knowing that each store is different we made it flexible enough to fit into almost any showroom.” At the New York event, those in attendance noted the potential of this program. Don Wohlfarth Jr., executive vice president of Bayard Sales Corp., sees this as “an opportunity to grow, especially in the branded market. This will be a great addition for a dealer to take on as many of today’s consumers are brand driven.”

And, when it comes to brands, he especially likes the fact, “Laura Ashley is an international name that stands for style, quality and design. And, this program certainly accentuates those attributes. The products are first class, the display is attractive and everything is very organized.” Wohlfarth also noted how this is just another positive step for the flooring industry on the whole. “Floor coverings is attracting more and more world class designers. That’s a great thing for the industry because they see the potential and are willing to put their names on our products.” For more information on the Laura Ashley Home collection, call your local Witex distributor or contact the mill at 800/948-3987. —Matthew Spieler