Mid-size fashion brands including Rhode and Loeffler Randall are expanding into homeware. Amid ongoing economic uncertainty, the aim is to diversify their offerings by bringing strong brand IPs and aesthetics into the booming category.
In the last two years, brands including Simon Miller, Emilia Wickstead and Aquazzura have launched homeware, making it appear an “easy transition” to bring their fashion aesthetic to the home.
The homeware sector is expected to reach a market value of more than $200 billion by the end of 2031, with an annual growth rate of 5% from 2021 to 2031, according to market research firm Fact.MR. To take advantage of that growth, fashion brands are entering related categories galore, including wallpaper.
“There’s already a market for items like branded Ralph Lauren towels in multi-brand retailers,” said Paul Simmons, consultant at strategy company Oma Studios. “The [trend] now is not just the branding of other items, but more of an extension of an aesthetic.”
Luxury brands have also increasingly entered the market. Balenciaga introduced home and pet items toward the end of last year, and on June 6, Tiffany & Co. launched an exclusive homeware collection at Moda Operandi. Its new artistic home director, Lauren Santo Domingo, founded Moda Operandi in 2010.
One factor is that more stores are being built around the idea of offering customers an experience. As such, home interiors have become a larger part of the store buildout. Bringing furnishings under the brand umbrella allows the brand to offer a more complete lifestyle. This is especially apparent with brands like Loeffler Randall and Rhode that use prints in their ready-to-wear collections, and luxury brands like Brunello Cucinelli, known for elaborate store designs.
For its home launch, in May, 18-year-old Loeffler Randall, best known for its footwear, collaborated with interiors showroom Temple Studios NY. The collection is a capsule of fabric and wallpaper products featuring whimsical prints and floral motifs in five patterned designs. The designs draw inspiration from the prints in Loeffler Randall’s Spring 2023 collection.
“On my team, we always design for ourselves, and we’re thinking authentically about what we want and what we are drawn toward,” said Jessie Randall, co-founder of Loeffler Randall. “And, because I’m so drawn to interiors, it made sense to me that our customer would also be drawn to the beautiful fabrics that Kate [Temple Reynolds, founder of Temple Studios] has been able to create with our prints.”
The collection was promoted in May through an insiders’ dinner in New York that connected the fashion and interior communities. The dinner also featured soft furnishings that will be featured in the second phase of the collection’s rollout set for later this year.
Costs for creating homeware can be quite high, as the involved pieces require new material categories. Simmons said, to mitigate risk around margins, collaborations or partnerships work better than taking the design and execution process in-house.
For interior experts, a main focus when selecting a fashion brand collaborator is the ease of transitioning its signatures to home products. “[Loeffler Randall’s] patterns are very organic already, so it seemed like a very natural thing to [work with],” said Temple Reynolds. “It can be hard to take a pattern and translate it into a repeat print for wallpaper.”
As for 9-year-old fashion brand Rhode, which came out with an owned limited collection of artisan homeware products in 2022, the focus of its second homeware launch was to make it more commercial. It partnered with established homeware store West Elm on a collection that came out on June 2. Leaning on vintage prints and colorful ceramics, the collection acts as an extension of the brand’s IP.
“Our brand’s launch into homeware was an instant success,” said Rhode co-founder Phoebe Vickers. “The response from customers exceeded our expectations, leading to a significant increase in sales and positive feedback.” The brand chose to partner with a homeware store the second time around to increase its production capabilities. The items are priced at a slightly more accessible rate than the first collection, and some pieces have already sold out.
“We have leveraged our existing customer base and brand recognition to introduce our home line organically,” said Purna Khatau, co-founder of Rhode. The brand used a multi-channel approach for marketing, including social media, email newsletters, and collaborations with influencers and interior design enthusiasts.
