Word: goldings
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...Chains such as Montgomery Ward, Heilig-Meyers and Sears Homelife went bust, flooding the market with discounted furniture. "It was as bad an industry downturn as we've experienced in our careers," says Joel Havard, vice president of equity research at BB&T Capital Markets. Amid that wreckage, Mitchell Gold is opening its very first store, a self-contained shop at ABC Carpet & Home, the upscale New York City clearinghouse for fine housewares of every kind...
...secret of the company's success goes back to Gold's childhood in a house full of fussy, formal furniture. "Growing up, we had cane-backed dining-room chairs that really weren't comfortable," says Gold. "We couldn't have a dog. We weren't even allowed to sit in the living room." That helped him appreciate the pleasures of an overstuffed sofa. He met Williams in 1986 in New York City, where Gold spent six years as a furniture buyer for Bloomingdale's and Williams worked as a graphic designer for Seventeen magazine. They both saw the same opportunity...
...Gold and Williams found inspiration where most people find their pleated relaxed-fit chinos: J. Crew. "We looked at J. Crew's blue shirt that comes already broken in," says Gold. "It's your favorite shirt from your closet. It's familiar." Their idea was to synthesize that familiarity using new materials that felt and looked like well-worn heirlooms. Gold calls his furniture philosophy "relaxed design," which means elegant and affordable, old and new, all at the same time. It makes deracinated college students feel as if they're at home, urban hipsters feel as if they...
...formula paid off immediately. In the company's first year, Gold says, it turned a profit on $1.5 million in sales, and the ink has been black ever since. Gold and Williams celebrated by acquiring an En-glish bulldog they named Lulu, who has become the company's advertising mascot. In 1998 Gold sold out to the Rowe Cos., owners of Rowe Furniture, which makes upholstered and leather furniture, and two retail chains, Home Elements and Storehouse. The deal afforded Gold financial security, and the ongoing relationship is strictly hands...
...real wonder of the Mitchell Gold Co. is that its reach has consistently exceeded its limits. For all the ubiquity of those brown leather club chairs, they were an initial disaster. Gold and Williams picked up a pair of 1930s vintage chairs at a flea market outside Paris in 1994. But they were too small for 1990s American legs. When they approached leather wholesalers with their order, Gold and Williams found that American companies were not prepared for them: they could buy white leather or teal leather, but not basic brown. What's more, the key to the chairs...