Just in from my first ever visit to the High Point Furniture Market.
Man — there’s just no way to accurately explain to you how strange this place is.
But the way people dress is a good beginning.
I wore a gray suit, white shirt, black tie and shoes. Figured this would be the way most other people were dressed.
Man, was I wrong.
I felt slightly overdressed next to the not insignificant number of guy in faded jeans, polo shirts and Nikes. I felt slightly under-dressed next to the hip young guys in slim Thom Browne suits that cost more than my entire wardrobe. I felt hopelessly unhip next to the guy and gals in horn-rimmed glasses, $300 stovepipe jeans, designer t-shirts and velvet blazers.
The market is, in a sense, about showing off. For buyers. For the press. For competitors. And so parts of it take on a sort of unnerving brothel quality — floors of small glass rooms containing provocatively dressed young women lounging on or posing near hip, retro space-age sofas, smiling invitingly and trying to catch the eye of largely older, male passersby. The Italian companies ram home the point with glistening Vespa scooters parked in the middle of their show spaces — even those that are the size of large elevators.
And then, right next to them, there are huge overlit rooms full of large, garish oil paintings of English gardens, rainstorms, puppy dogs and sad clowns — Holiday Inn chic.
Maybe most jarring to an outsider is the markup. As you walk the halls, traverse the cafeteria-style lunch space with its full bar and Wolfgang Puck salads, you’re handed a different flier what seems like every two-and-a-half minutes. The one I’m looking at right now advertises a very attractive, buttery soft leather sofa, loveseat and chair combo for $399. Another very nice two piece sectional and ottoman: $359.
That’s not what you’re paying once it gets to wherever it’s going and you go looking for a couch there, of course — you’re paying three times that. You’ve suspected this all along — but the repeated presentation of the evidence makes you feel like a schmuck.
1 Comment
October 22, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hey, I really love old retro stuff and vintage furniture is one of my favorites. The old stuff was made well and lasts, not like the new cheap stuff.