homes
Saturday, August 3, 2002
Clean Lines, Serenity of Asian Furnishings Appeal to Boomers
By Rick Nathanson
Of the Journal
Thanks to the baby boomers, the home furnishings market is expanding rapidly for all things Asian, according to New Mexico retailers. "The baby boomers in their youth were always fascinated by the East," said Anne Raeff, co-owner of Two Serious Ladies in Nob Hill.
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"They were the generation who went backpacking through India and the Orient, they sought out gurus, learned meditation, lived in ashrams and were generally attracted to the idea of a simpler, more spiritual lifestyle."
These same people, now middle aged, have retained those aesthetic and spiritual sensibilities, Raeff said, "but now they have homes and money."
When Two Serious Ladies opened four years ago, the Asian furnishings trend was already popular on both coasts, said co-owner Lori Ostlund. "Some people didn't think Albuquerque was ready, but after we opened many of our customers said they had been going to San Francisco and Los Angeles and shipping back here."
The store deals primarily in original antiques, new reproductions and old refurbished pieces from Indonesia and Korea.
Design elements
Another Nob Hill area store that sells Asian pieces is Hey Jhonny. Co-owner Carl Latino said a lot of his customers have been influenced by Feng Shui, the ancient Oriental system of arranging design elements to create a harmonious balance and positive energy flow. The system promotes a less cluttered environment, Latino said, and complements "the simple lines and the sense of serenity" that people find appealing in many Asian furnishings.
Among the more popular pieces sold at Hey Jhonny are statues of Buddha and Quan Yin (the Chinese goddess of compassion), simple rice bowls and sake sets, incense, traditional cast iron tea pots, Asian art glass, and Kenzan-style bases for floral arrangements.
"The upper end of contemporary, the more sophisticated look of the new contemporary, is influenced strongly by Oriental design," said interior designer Moses Zabec, owner of Moses At Home. "You see it in the very clean lines and the minimalist idea that less is more."
Which is also a "Zen thing," Zabec said, and that's especially appealing to "people who do yoga and explore Eastern religions and philosophy — which hearkens back to the '60s and '70s again."
Buyers have been partial to simple furnishings, including dinnerware and flatware with less ornamentation, roll-up bamboo window shades, and cork floors (popular in other markets but not yet seen here), Zabec said.
Rather than traditional ornate Oriental paintings, many people are now using Indonesian-type "pieces of carved wood that might have been in a door or a screen, as objects to hang on a wall."
Deb Paczynski, vice president of furniture for American Home, said many people "use Asian to blend with other styles." For example, she noted, "you can blend Asian and Mission styles pretty successfully because they use a lot of the same simple lines and wood tones."
Paczynski just returned from a furniture buying trip to China where American Home works with a factory to obtain reproductions and hand-painted pieces. The factory also builds a line of American Home-designed occasional tables, including coffee, cocktail, end and sofa tables, which are intended to complement hand-painted pieces American Home already sells.
Many of these hand-painted pieces — TV armoires and various chests in particular — are decorated with traditional Chinese designs, such as landscapes, birds, flowers and nature scenes, Paczynski said.
American Home's accessories buyer, Elaine Roy, said the current focus on Asian design and furnishings "won't replace traditional Southwest design," but the simple, uncluttered, straight lines of Asian furniture "mixes well with contemporary furniture," including many Southwest pieces.
Asian designs, she said, are "functional and less ornate." Even though some of the hand-painted motifs on the individual pieces can be quite bright and elaborate, "the pieces themselves have simple, straight lines."
Among the most popular accessories, Roy said, have been candles, simple silk flower arrangements, ornamental grass arrangements, contemporary-styled lamps, and Buddha sculptures, "not for shrines or altars, but as stand-alone pieces for a garden or bedroom."
What's nice about the current interest in Asian design is it indicates people are revisiting the notion that "spaces and the things that surround you in those spaces are important," Roy said. "Keeping things simple is a way to bring peace into their otherwise complex lives."
