Jay Anna Mize
Appearances
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
So did Caroline and Jay's predictions on Huckleberry, Granny Millennial and butterflies come true? Will these trends be in stores near you soon? That is after the break.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
The voice in this ad is the sofa's designer, Timothy Olten. He designed the couch for RH, which most people know as Restoration Hardware. It was launched back in 2015.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
The cloud couch has been so successful. It made all of these enormous ripples through the furniture industry. Caroline describes it as the couch that ate the world.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
The cloud couch is the peak of this massive cultural change from formal to relaxed. Think soft, baggy pants and fast, casual dining, but a couch. And especially during the pandemic, everyone wanted a lot of casual comfort.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
There are many, many TikToks and comments on Reddit dedicated to complaining about the clout couch. Mostly about how the pillows need to be floofed up every day or otherwise it looks like a disaster or how there's no support. It feels like you're just lying on a pile of blankets.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
But even with the backlash, Restoration Hardware's slouchy, low, extra soft cloud couch became a hit.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
And retailers at all sorts of price points, from West Elm to Raymoor and Flanagan to Wayfair, came to High Point, where they might buy knockoffs of that couch. Some might cut corners on quality. This is how high fashion furniture moves through the industry and gets less expensive.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Of course, her company would rather be a company that leads, you know, makes the trendsetting furniture that gets copied, not be the kind of company that just makes dupes.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
So how did their bets on Granny Millennial, Huckleberry and Butterflies work out?
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Caroline starts by talking about the collection they've designed for the granny millennial. Now, success would look like getting a lot of orders, so many that they could even start making, or as they call it in the biz, cutting the furniture. Caroline says the orders are still coming in, but her early read on the collection for granny millennials is very good.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
There are a couple hundred people here, all dressed up, like bites are being served. There's cocktails.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Yeah, huckleberry hasn't taken off yet. And finally, for their last bet...
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
James Sneed produced today's episode with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Sina Lofredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Finally, the real stars of the evening start to appear on a screen behind the presenters.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
You heard right. The presenters really enjoy sitting. This is the Oscars of Furniture, an entire evening of the latest standout furniture and home furnishings, categories like home office and outdoor. This award category is for the Best Leather Upholstery.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
The winner is the Wood and Leather Armchair. The judges are design experts and they declared this chair a winner because it's, quote, strongly modern with a nod to traditional elements. A standout piece in any setting.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
And while these are all very stylish items, this evening isn't just about celebrating this year's winners. It's also about the future of furniture. Because we're at High Point Market, the trendsetting event for furniture. The people who come here decide what furniture makers will make over the next few years and what consumers will want to buy.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronchik. And I'm Erica Barris. You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it, because it was comfy or blue or the right price.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
But what if the style, the color, the cost, maybe even whether you would like it, were choices made for you years before you even thought about buying that piece of furniture?
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
This room, where the furniture industry makes the decisions that ripple out into showrooms and catalogs and eventually into our homes, is actually more of a small city. We are in downtown High Point.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
We're in a massive glass and metal building. Picture a new mall with each door filled with lighting or bedding or textiles or furniture. We head up to the third floor.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Caroline is a big deal in this industry. Just won an Icon Award a few nights earlier. She's the Chief Creative Officer for Hooker Furnishings.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Caroline, along with hundreds of people, have spent the past few months designing and displaying furniture in this enormous space.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
They are here selling their latest designs. The buyers include interior designers, but more importantly, the big spenders are reps from the retail stores. Think Crate & Barrel, Restoration Hardware, Wayfair. Most of those big chains do not, in fact, have their own factories. So twice a year, High Point puts on this big market.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
And the Crate and Barrels of the world come here to buy the furniture they want to sell in their stores. You'll see in our showroom, we study color and mood.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
She's hoping that all the retailers who are milling through these vignettes, that they will see the glamorous bed or the moss green chairs and that they will like it and order them for their stores. This is the point of the week at High Point Market.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
And for that, Caroline and the furniture company hire trend forecasters like Jay. And they ask, what do you think is the next big thing? Basically, together, they make a series of bets about what the consumer will want to buy. And to do this, Jay and her colleagues do a ton of consumer research. They're pulling data on retail stores. What are people buying? They're looking at social media.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
What are people searching for? And they're following a media tracker. What topics are people reading about?
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Caroline and Jay point out this one really dramatic color that they think is going to go big.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
I'm not ashamed. Huckleberry is such a pushover. I guess Caroline was also into it. Because of Jay's predictions, Caroline and Hooker Furnishings have made a bunch of furniture in Huckleberry, as well as dusty terracotta, like those orange pots for plants, and a brassy mustard. So how did they get to these predictions?
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Jay says that during uncertain times and times of social upheaval, people are drawn to grounding colors, darker colors.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
It's an ongoing schlock. Caroline and her team go. They pick out some fabrics they like. And of course, they order some styles in huckleberry. That fabric is then used to upholster chairs and sofas and ottomans. This whole process from the initial prediction of huckleberry to the huckleberry sofa in the showroom, it moves pretty slowly.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
We will find out later how this all works out for them. The next bet that Caroline and Jay are making is one based on demographics. Like, who is buying nice furniture right now?
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Caroline wants to show us what they've designed for the millennials. So we walk to another showroom.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
Yes, Granny Millennial or Grand Millennial appears to have been named a few years ago.
Planet Money
Why you bought your couch
The third and final bet that Caroline walks us through, a bet that people would also like a little whimsy, like a wingback chair with butterflies printed on the fabric.