Brand Hex

After yet another disheartening tour of America’s home textiles retailing scene one is once again reminded that branding is still just an abstract concept to most of the industry.

Yes, walk the aisles and surf the pages of textilesland and there is most certainly no shortage of branded goods available for sale. But to say it is a less-than-inspiring, lackluster and largely irrelevant list of names and labels (two things very different than actual brands) is to be polite at best.

What you find is an assortment of Grade C television personalities, names out of yesteryear that may or may not mean anything to today’s shoppers, long-lost vendor-generated nameplates that were never particularly strong even in their heyday and some ersatz made-up names where the royalties are free and the attachment to the consumer is marginal at best.

And virtually every one of them is only available at the particular retail establishment you happen to be shopping at that day. Walk down the mall or click on another page and there’s an entirely different assortment of equally-as-dubious names.

The irony shouldn’t be lost on anybody that the greatest repository of brand names that have even a sliver of recognition can be found in the third-tier stores of HomeGoods, Ross, Burlington and the TJ Maxx/Marshalls twins.

So it was with particular interest that one checked out what was happening at WestPoint Home this past home textiles market week last month. It made a rather bold and unexpected attempt to bring back from the dead some of its legacy brands from several generations ago: Martex, Luxor, Utica and even Lady Pepperell. Led by a management team largely brought in from outside the home textiles sector, they decided to see if these brands still had a place in the marketplace.

I have no idea if this is going to work or not. Frankly, a few of these brands were not exactly powerhouses even in their primes. But some of them were and maybe, somewhere deep in the recesses of shoppers’ minds, they will resonate and prove to be impactful. Perhaps it’s too much to ask that multiple stores would want to carry Martex-branded product as they once did many years ago, but maybe it’s possible.

You’ll read all kinds of studies that brands don’t matter anymore and that the new generation of shoppers is looking for more than just a name. And yes, that’s true, but in fact good brands do matter and if you don’t believe that, ask Nike or Lululemon or Zara or Dyson. Some of these brands have been around for decades, others are relatively new. But what they all have in common is a position with the consumer that means something beyond just another label.

No home textiles brand has had that kind of wide-spread relevance since the days of Royal Velvet, Ralph Lauren and Cannon.

Someday, somebody is going to fi gure that out and make the necessary investment to create a truly great home textiles brand. And only then will the hex be lifted.