Ethan Allen to show new store design, line
By Furniture Today Staff -- Furniture Today, April 28, 2003
Danbury, Conn. — Manufacturer and retailer Ethan Allen plans a special dealer conference at its Alpharetta, Ga., store June 19–20 to introduce its dealers to the company's new store design.
Also on display at the Atlanta-area store will be a new product line, a 30- to 40-piece group of casual country case goods, upholstery and accents, a move to strengthen the company's assortment of more relaxed product. The timing will allow the product to hit retail floors for the fall selling season.
Ethan Allen usually holds regional conferences in March and only gathers its entire dealer network for its annual fall conference at the Danbury headquarters, where it also makes its major product introductions.
"This is a special conference we're having to ... reflect the new store design because we wanted all our retailers to see it," Farooq Kathwari, chairman and chief executive officer, said last week during a conference call reviewing Ethan Allen's third-quarter results. "We also decided to accelerate a product introduction that normally would have reached the consumer in spring 2004."
The new casual country group takes an item approach and will feature a lot of color, Kathwari said. Most of the pieces will come from Ethan Allen's southern U.S. plants.
"We're using the flexibility of our domestic manufacturing to give flexibility in color," he said.
