JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it - because it was blue or the right price. But what if the style, the color, the cost were choices made for you years before you even thought about buying that piece of furniture? Amanda Aronczyk from our Planet Money podcast takes us to meet the people who set trends for the furniture world.
AMANDA ARONCZYK, BYLINE: Downtown High Point, North Carolina, is made up of 13 city blocks filled with furniture show rooms displaying the latest in sofas and side tables, lighting fixtures.
JAYE ANNA MIZE: This is like Disney World for furniture.
ARONCZYK: High Point Market is held twice a year, and it's basically a trade show. My guide is Jaye Anna Mize, a VP at Fashion Snoops, which specializes in trend forecasting. Jaye has arranged for me to meet a client of hers, Caroline Hipple, the chief creative officer for Hooker Furnishings, one of the largest furniture manufacturers in the country.
CAROLINE HIPPLE: Oh, hi.
MIZE: Hi.
HIPPLE: You let me have a hug first. Look how beautiful you look. Oh, my God.
MIZE: Thank you.
ARONCZYK: Full disclosure - Caroline was not talking to me. She was talking to Jaye, who's wearing a dark purple coat. It seems like this color choice was not an accident. As we tour the show room, I see it on a couch and some pillows.
And what color would you say that is?
HIPPLE: Huckleberry.
MIZE: Yeah.
HIPPLE: Yeah.
ARONCZYK: So Jaye's purple coat - they call it huckleberry.
HIPPLE: And this is the color of the season.
MIZE: And even my nails are kind of that color.
ARONCZYK: But, unlike in the fashion world, Jaye explains that fashion in furniture moves much more slowly.
MIZE: Yes. So I said huckleberry a year and a half ago.
HIPPLE: Yeah.
ARONCZYK: That's really when this whole process began - with consumer research. Jaye's prediction is based on the idea that during uncertain times and times of social upheaval, people are drawn to grounding colors, darker colors. For Caroline, that made a lot of sense.
HIPPLE: You think about what's going on in the economics of the world, what's going on in the environment that affects how the consumer feels. And then you'll see that translated into the choices they make to furnish their home.
ARONCZYK: So Caroline and Hooker Furnishings went big on huckleberry. They made some couches, some suede chairs, some pillows in that color. And I don't know. I kind of like it.
So wait. So did I want that color?
MIZE: You will want that color.
ARONCZYK: I do now.
HIPPLE: That's perfect. That's how working with someone like Fashion Snoops helps us.
ARONCZYK: Clearly, I'm a sucker for huckleberry. Caroline's company is also trying out a couple of other new colors - terracotta and mustard. The real question, though, is, will retailers, like Wayfair or Crate and Barrel or Restoration Hardware, order these products for their stores? So to find out, I called Caroline a few weeks after the market to ask her which colors retailers actually bought.
HIPPLE: The dusty terracotta seemed to be the biggest draw.
ARONCZYK: Do you think terracotta might have beat out my favorite, huckleberry?
HIPPLE: I think maybe so, but don't count huckleberry out.
ARONCZYK: She says that sometimes newer colors are a risk.
HIPPLE: It takes a couple of seasons for them to really gain traction and people to figure out how they can use it.
ARONCZYK: So, yeah, huckleberry hasn't taken off yet. But you might see a few huckleberry items in stores in 2025, and you can be the judge. Amanda Aronczyk, NPR News.
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