Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Interesting article on Jen Bekman in today's Times. (Disclaimer: I used to date her ex-assistant, an artist, and one of his works can be seen in the background of one of the Times photos.) I'm taking a different direction as Jen to a similar end result, but I am wholeheartedly embracing the "easing the pain of collecting" concept she espouses and trying to democratize, in whatever small fashion, a field where prices and expectations have gotten totally out of hand.
It's a little amusing that my store's initial launch date was a week from tomorrow. My AMLI space is still a big, dirt-floored hole in the wall, unchanged from six months ago. I had no idea how glacially the pace of building out raw space can run. At this point I'm still waiting on the architects to finish up the plans, which I think are mostly done at this point minus the canopy (since it's being designed by a third party), but they will supposedly be ready to submit to the city for permitting purposes next week. Assuming we hit that deadline, we will be on track for a tentative launch date of May 15, with my move-in commencing two weeks before then.
I know it's been a while since my last blog entry, but to get you caught up: my trip to Paris was a smashing success, although a day and a half was nowhere near enough time to take in the entire Maison et Objet fair. To give you an idea of the size of the thing: remember the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the ark is wheeled into a seemingly endless warehouse? Imagine that, times eight: each of the fair's exhibition halls (eight total) was that large. I had to skip some major chunks of it, but even from what I did see I discovered more than enough unique small design-oriented items to sell in the store. Most of it's never been sold in the U.S., and in some cases never outside of Europe. Even better, I had many of the mysteries of wholesale vs. retail pricing (no, it's not simply a matter of doubling the wholesale price, as is common in American retail), order sizes and international shipping solved.
Much less successful was my trip a week later -- after returning to Austin -- to L.A., San Francisco, Madrid and London. The previously mentioned Heath Ceramics warehouse in Sausalito had only fractional amounts of individual kinds of tile, and very little in colors or sizes that would work; and Madrid's ARCO fair yielded little fruit. I did, however, do some hopefully-successful marketing with one of the primary London vendors I'm interested in working with, although I was positively gobsmacked by how expensive everything was there (and I'd scored a ridiculously cheap hotel rate, plus I refrained from using black cabs or doing any shopping whatsoever). It was great being back there for the first time in several years, however, and it made me more than a little homesick (I lived there for about four months in 2001 while researching and writing a London travel guide).
Btw I totally forgot to mention my store's first media mention! The Statesman ran a story about new 2nd St. businesses a while back that mentioned it. Granted, they got the name wrong (it's simply "Kirk," not "Kirk Furniture") and misdescribed what I'm selling (vintage furniture will only be a third of it), but any PR is good PR.
It's a little amusing that my store's initial launch date was a week from tomorrow. My AMLI space is still a big, dirt-floored hole in the wall, unchanged from six months ago. I had no idea how glacially the pace of building out raw space can run. At this point I'm still waiting on the architects to finish up the plans, which I think are mostly done at this point minus the canopy (since it's being designed by a third party), but they will supposedly be ready to submit to the city for permitting purposes next week. Assuming we hit that deadline, we will be on track for a tentative launch date of May 15, with my move-in commencing two weeks before then.
I know it's been a while since my last blog entry, but to get you caught up: my trip to Paris was a smashing success, although a day and a half was nowhere near enough time to take in the entire Maison et Objet fair. To give you an idea of the size of the thing: remember the ending of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," where the ark is wheeled into a seemingly endless warehouse? Imagine that, times eight: each of the fair's exhibition halls (eight total) was that large. I had to skip some major chunks of it, but even from what I did see I discovered more than enough unique small design-oriented items to sell in the store. Most of it's never been sold in the U.S., and in some cases never outside of Europe. Even better, I had many of the mysteries of wholesale vs. retail pricing (no, it's not simply a matter of doubling the wholesale price, as is common in American retail), order sizes and international shipping solved.
Much less successful was my trip a week later -- after returning to Austin -- to L.A., San Francisco, Madrid and London. The previously mentioned Heath Ceramics warehouse in Sausalito had only fractional amounts of individual kinds of tile, and very little in colors or sizes that would work; and Madrid's ARCO fair yielded little fruit. I did, however, do some hopefully-successful marketing with one of the primary London vendors I'm interested in working with, although I was positively gobsmacked by how expensive everything was there (and I'd scored a ridiculously cheap hotel rate, plus I refrained from using black cabs or doing any shopping whatsoever). It was great being back there for the first time in several years, however, and it made me more than a little homesick (I lived there for about four months in 2001 while researching and writing a London travel guide).
Btw I totally forgot to mention my store's first media mention! The Statesman ran a story about new 2nd St. businesses a while back that mentioned it. Granted, they got the name wrong (it's simply "Kirk," not "Kirk Furniture") and misdescribed what I'm selling (vintage furniture will only be a third of it), but any PR is good PR.
