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27:43Well, we're real buttoned up and very serious about making money as well. This is not - No surprise there. This is not a hobby. This is not a thing that we do. I mean, we do do it because we love it. And Tammy used to always say, I would do this for free. I love it so much. And I'm like, I would not do it for free. I love it, but I would not do it for free. but it's a whole lot of schlepping and managing and coordinating and handling problems so that clients don't have to handle it. So we have explored lots of different ways of doing this. We are currently on hourly for the most part, hourly plus markup.

28:23We did experiment at one point with flat fee and look, it's a luxury business. So at the end of the day, if a client prefers a flat fee, we will happily do that and we're comfortable doing that. We have a different service agreement that they would sign that is more particular to that type of arrangement. But we are on a 35 % markup. We used to actually, I think Tammy and I both really liked the way we used to do it because it felt very easy to explain to clients. And that was that we always said we would split our discount with you evenly. So if retail's here and our discount's here, we're going to split it with you evenly, you're going to be paying less than retail.

28:58But because we appreciate the data and really spend a lot of time looking at it and evaluating historical projects once we've completed them, we did this look back and we're like, look, we know from peers in our industry, this is about what people are charging somewhere between 20 to 40 to 50 % to 100 % markup. We landed on 35 because it felt very congruous with what we were seeing in our own data. And it saves on a project management. From the project management standpoint, our PMs aren't having to, for every single item, calculate what the discount is. It was a lot easier to explain to clients who don't understand the complexity and the nuances of this business that we split our discount with you and you're going to be paying less than retail.

29:45Now, that's not always the case. Because if we, for example, purchase something from a real bespoke small maker in Brooklyn, they might only offer a 15 % discount to the trade. So they would be paying more than retail. We're comfortable with it at this point. And we're comfortable talking to our clients about it because they're not paying us for that individual item. They're paying us for the overall design and management and implementation of the project. And so on the sofa or the sectional for their lower level, they might be paying significantly under retail on this one item. They might be paying a little more than that, but it's the overall part of what we're being compensated for.

30:30And we're very transparent with that. Very transparent. We very much want our clients to feel like this has been so worth the investment. And that's what we kind of think about projects. This is an investment in a home, and it's not about just getting the best deal at every turn. There are times to invest in pieces. And the thing is, is that it's guaranteed you're going to get a deal on something. It's just the nature of it. You find things that are next to nothing, and there's not a huge markup on that kind of stuff. So in the end, that's what's working for us. But again, as Krista mentioned, we have clients sometimes that just from a financial planning standpoint, They want to count on a certain amount of money every month.

31:11And we have had arrangements in which we do design fees, if that makes sense, that are, you know, flat fees that we do and are collected incrementally over specific deliverables, you know, along with product markup. I think it's really the bottom line is that we are, you know, capable of being flexible about that kind of thing to make sure that the project works really for everybody.

31:40We're taking a quick break from the show to remind you about Lalloy. This spring, Lalloy launched two exciting collaborations. Discover bold, modern rugs and pillows from their new collection with Jeremiah Brent. And don't miss the latest season of Magnolia Home by Joanna Gaines. Fresh designs you'll love. Explore both at lalloyrugs.com. That's L-O-L-O-I rugs.com. And follow at Laloirugs on Instagram and TikTok. And now, back to the show.

32:17And do you think that it is damaging to our industry that there are so many different charging models out there? 100%. I do. Yes. I think it can be confusing for clients. I often say to prospective clients, we always ask them, have you worked with a designer before? What has your experience been? How did they charge? And I almost always use this line, which is, unfortunately, our industry has been historically shrouded in secrecy. And that means that people don't understand what they're paying for and what they're being charged. And that is the opposite of what we're trying to do here. We built this business on transparency.

33:04it is incredibly important to us as Tammy said that our clients understand what they're paying us for that they feel like they're getting a value that's not to say that we're inexpensive but that they are getting a value for the service and the design and the whole project and then we tell them very point blank you're paying us hourly and you're paying us a markup and those two buckets combined comprise our profit margin it's interesting because clients often feel that maybe they should be getting the full discount or whatever. But it's not possible from a... I mean, it is if you charge an inordinately high hourly or an inordinately high project fee.

33:41But I think in the end, our clients are getting what they're paying for, and it feels more fair to them if they're paying hourly with the markup than doing a flat fee. Because if it's a flat fee, we have to err on the higher side of things because we don't know yet if they're going to be the client that requires, you know, multiple revisions or handholding or what have you. So, but yeah, I think to your point, Dennis, I think that, and this is why this conversation comes up endlessly when designers get together is because we all do it differently and people just do it the way that feels right and most comfortable to them.

34:17And so we do at the outset like to have conversations with clients to make sure that we're all on the same page. We're not trying to hide anything. We will show you all of our cards. And at any point, if they want to see receipts or back-end information, that's fully available. It's completely available. We will provide all those things. But it's just this is what works best for our company because we run a profitable company. Why would we run a company otherwise? The other part of that, though, that's really critical to all of this is having a budget for the project. So, you know, we can tell you how we charge, but, you know, there can't just be an endless amount of time billing and an endless amount of product markup.

34:59So, like, what is the overall budget? So, we've also, because of the reporting that we can run and looking at all the historical data, we do have a sense about, like, what it's going to cost from a time billing standpoint. Because there's nothing sillier than starting out a project without a budget. If you have a client that says, well, I have no budget. Well, at a certain point, everybody's got a budget. I mean, everybody's got like a point at which that they're like screaming uncle. And so for us, we really like the boundaries of a budget because it helps us to define what we're looking for.

35:31Like we, because of our experience and our knowledge of the industry, if we know that we have a certain budget for certain things, we know where to go to look for it. Like we know there are going to be a certain, you know, cache of vendors that we're going to go start looking for different things for. So there's some amount of responsibility on the part of the client to provide a budget or at least to be open to what we suggest the budget should be to reach this level of finish and look. You know, there's got to be like a meeting of minds where that's concerned. It also really helps the project stay on course from a project management standpoint because we do an itemized budget in studio and we start off with kind of like here's a low, high range.

36:15Some clients just look at the bottom line and say, I'm comfortable with that. Some want to look line by line. But once we lock in the budget, we do budget versus actual reporting every month, and they're able to see. And we can say, hey, amazing. We're going to splurge on this$45 ,000 custom dining table when we didn't have a budget for it, but this is going to put us over. Or are we going to make some accommodations elsewhere in the project budget? It's not like we're not holding ourselves to it line by line, but we are very much allowing ourselves to rob Peter to pay Paul throughout the budget overall.

36:50And clients really, since we started doing that maybe a couple years ago, clients really appreciate that. And they know that we're taking the budget seriously and they feel empowered to make decisions to go over the budget. but oftentimes that does happen, but at least they know. And they're confident that we're managing it carefully and respect their budget. And we just, we've always said that we're, you know, we feel a great responsibility that we're stewards of the budget. Like once we've been provided, that it's on us to do right by them. So we don't need to be off, you know, specifying things that are way outside the budget.

37:24Like that would be not negligence so much, but just honestly like stupidity on our part. Like, you know, we have to exercise the control within that and make the proper selections that we're going to be showing clients. Well, I want the two of you on the planning committee when we get together to create the structure that we're all going to agree on in the future. We will gladly volunteer. Okay, so we're going to be calling on you then. But let's come back to the Cloth and Kind evolution because it does ultimately become a showroom business. There's a retail store that pops up for a little bit of time as well.

38:02And I want to quickly touch on how the business evolved. So, well, you tell me, the retail side, the fabric side, how does that finally start to happen for you both? Well, we had been in business for about five years when we opened the showroom and shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. When we were working, you know, actively working as designers, it became pretty evident to us that there was an unmet need in the Midwest in terms of boutique showrooms and specifically, you know, an underrepresentation of a lot of these artisanal lines that we loved so much and had been using in our projects and had gotten to know the designers and the artists behind these lines.

38:44So we, again, just like kind of the naivete, maybe you call it, of saying, sure, we can have offices in two separate states. We thought, sure, we can just open a boutique trade showroom and surely we can sell these lines that we love to other designers. And it really was about a deep respect and honoring, honestly, of these beautiful fabrics that we just were obsessed with and these people behind the lines. And so we decided we knew the showroom was going to be a part of it at that point. And we were really excited about that. And then kind of like halfway through planning it, someone said, oh, you should have a retail shop and be open to the public, too.

39:26And I roll and many, I can think, regrets later and wishing we had heard more from people who didn't love the shop side of the business. We decided to open a shop and the showroom at the same time. And the shop, some people do it and are successful at it. For us, it was not what we loved. It was not what our heart was in. And it ultimately was a distraction from the showroom. So we did that for a couple years and we joke it was kind of our eat, pray, love moment. We went to India. We went to India right before COVID. And we were like, okay, we have to sell off all the inventory from the floor and we have to like buy all new things and create new vignettes.

40:09And we just kind of looked at each other and we're like, I don't want to do this anymore. You know? And it should be her mentioning that we're also not good at it. Yeah, not good at it. There's that part. Like, it's a very, very different thing. We were like, oh, it's just a shop. We'll create little vignettes. It's just like designing little rooms. Now, that is not even remotely what it's called. That's not even. Turns out that the visual merchandising is just a small component of actually running. I mean, it was just like we were so blind to what it was actually going to take. And so, again, like we didn't, we weren't good at it.

40:43We didn't love it. It really was a distraction from the showroom, which actually. And from our interior design business. because I pulled out of our interior design business for the better part of two years to open and run this thing and get it off the ground. Oh, I didn't realize that you had fully pulled yourself away from the design business. I had to. I mean, it was like, it was in my, yeah, it was. So again, you know, at this point in our lives, we're at the place where we can look back fondly and think of all the lessons we learned. We can laugh about it now. Oh, we can laugh. How much wiser we are today.

41:17Yes, so much wiser. But it really was a very hard time for us going through that and learning what it took and that we didn't want to do it. And the investment we had made in it, you know, we're all, we're just self-funded. And, you know, it was a lot. It was a lot. And so we went to India and we have our E-Pay Love moment. And we come back and we decided to close the shop down. And then the world shut down with COVID. And we eventually got out of our lease and have been focusing. I got fully back into design and we've been focusing very heavily on the showroom, which has just grown leaps and bounds since we closed the shop.

41:56Okay. So, right. So, you've right-tracked yourself with all of that. What felt or feels so different to you running the showroom versus running a retail store? It's just, I think, having customers or clients who are designers who understand the process, who they're working in a bespoke or custom manner with these fabrics. They have clients that have the budgets for these fabrics and wallpapers and the other lines that we represent, hardware and some furniture, lighting. But that's the world that we're immersed in and that we really, really love. And that's our audience for these textiles. I really do keep bringing it back to these artisanal lines because that is what Tammy and I came together over a shared love of.

42:44And it really drives so much of our own interior design work and the sensibility of our projects. And it's just where our heart is. That makes sense. That makes sense. And you love it so much that it's expanded to Winnetka, Illinois as well now. That's right. We have been in Ann Arbor, which again is kind of funny because the Midwest is a huge, huge swath of the country, as it turns out. We have 12 states in our primary territory for the showroom. And our biggest, you know, base of clients is in Chicago. although gosh, Minnesota, Minneapolis, Wisconsin, Ohio. I mean, all of these places are really responding so well because we've been going in and doing meetings in all these places and designers are just so hungry to see interesting new things.

43:36But yeah, Chicago's by far been our number one territory and a little opportunity came up for a beautiful space in Winneka on Green Bay Road. And we took it. We jumped at it. And you mentioned the breadth and depth. We tend to talk about the Midwest as if it's all one homogeneous place with one design sensibility or one type of home or designers. I mean, tell me all the things that were getting wrong about how that thinking about the Midwest really turns out to be? The Midwest, I think, is a workhorse of sorts. Designers have previously always been thought of as kind of, I think, maybe a little more sensible than East Coast or West Coast or even Texas designers.

44:29And for a long time, that was true. And there was a lot of kind of safe design happening here, but that's really changing. And we are seeing that tenfold through the eyes of our clients on the showroom side. There's been a massive expansion of people moving here, I think, since COVID and just wanting to get out of bigger cities. And so specifically the second home market, the lakes in northern Michigan are absolutely stunning. There's Door County in Wisconsin, Lake Geneva, also in Wisconsin. There's gorgeous lake communities in Minnesota. And that second home market is driving a ton of demand from really affluent clients, customers.

45:08And really, there's just so many designers who haven't had access to great design centers and are so hungry, so, so hungry for something other than the typical lines, the large lines that they go to. So we have dedicated salespeople that go out. One is based in Winnetka and the other one in Michigan, but they travel. And we've employed this pop-up strategy because we've found that when we go to some of these smaller markets, they're eager to host and they'll bring their friends. And sometimes we'll go in with another vendor. Like we've done a lot of interesting things recently with Farrow and Ball and Kohler and Anne Sachs, you know, so not directly competitive, but we all have kind of the same audience and that's worked really well.

46:01And I just think it's a booming market, the Midwest, and it's a little slower burn. It takes a little bit longer to get in with designers, a little bit longer for a new line to maybe take hold. but some of our lines that have been with us since the beginning, like Dick Corbabar, Penny Morrison, Farrakh Mason, Seema Krish, you know, they've been with us since the beginning and they're really, really happy. They're doing great. I mean, they've all said, you know, historically the Midwest never really amounted to much and we're really proud that it is now. What is it about the slow burn? What is it about the taking a little bit longer with Midwestern designers to win them over or to get them to try new things?

46:49I think it's just the personality. It's just a slower-paced life there in many ways. Not that Minneapolis can't be busy or these other places. It's just a sensibility, I think. And this is coming from an outsider looking in. I mean, I'm Southern through and through, But like even me, when I go to visit the Midwest, like it's less showy. You know, I'm used to like massive SUVs and flaunting everything you've got down here. And it's like, it's hard to find anything but an electric car up there or anywhere. You know, everybody is just so reasonable, you know. And so I just think some of it is just like, there's not the same.

47:29Spoken like a true Southerner. Yeah, there's not the same urgency about things that I think you can see in these other markets, larger markets and whatnot. It's refreshing, actually. But there's a lot of loyalty. And I think that's what's really interesting is that once these people have been exposed to these lines and have had an opportunity to also truthfully be seen, I think that because the Midwest is so enormous, it's a hard thing for any line rep to get out there and go see them. You know, if you don't have a design center, it's like someone's got to come travel to you. And so I think we've done a really, really good job of that, of not only physically showing up in these places and doing the pop-ups, like Krista was saying, but also just like outreach.

48:13Like we make sure that they know where we are. How can we service them? We follow them on their feeds. We know the types of things that they like. And we will inquire, you know, like, hey, we see that you're doing such and such. We've got some great things that we think that you might like for your projects. And I think a lot of it has just been the fact that they've been actually seen in some ways for the first time. It was one of the things that prompted us to want to do a showroom in the first place is because I was buying a lot of artisanal textiles from, you know, the one or two showrooms at the design center, the merchandise mart in Chicago.

48:51And every time I called up there, they were like, I'm sorry, who are you? You know, nobody called on me. Nobody sent me new things. Nobody, and ironically, it's like, you know, we're friends with Katie Lead as an example. And she's like, she would be like horrified. She's like, you buy so much of my fabric. Like, how are you not getting any attention? And we just thought we can do this. Like we can do this with kindness. We can do this with exceptional customer service. We can meet people where they are. They don't have to wait to hear from us or to ask us for them rather. But I think, yeah, I think the slow burn too is also just that think about these smaller design firms and they have their libraries and they source from their libraries.

49:36And so you get in, you meet with them, they ask for a lot of memos that they love, they get them in, but then it's like that slow burn of kind of like, okay, when they start finally pulling from those libraries and using the memos, it just, it takes a little bit longer here. It's interesting what you were talking about not being serviced or not being followed up with. I've been having a couple of conversations recently with fabric industry leaders that brought up this notion that we've slid backwards a little bit. We had gotten better in showrooms about being friendly and greeting and jumping up and having that energy.

50:15We were not very good at it a decade ago. And we heard it so much as feedback that we collectively, everybody tried to rally around and say, oh, you're right. We do have to have more energy or be friendlier. but I don't know that we I think we've slipped back a little bit with that in some of the big design centers, nothing against any of them individually but I think there are opportunities for improvement there but I think also to the point of being data driven as we were talking about earlier, I think some multi-line showrooms still just get a new line and they send it to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that's on the list and it's being dropped from a plane and everybody gets it whether you want it or not.

51:07And that doesn't make sense for anybody, particularly knowing as expensive as samples are and all the time involved. Well, and as designers on the receiving end of that, it's actually offensive. Exactly. Do you know nothing about me that you don't know that I wouldn't want this or that that's not my aesthetic? Yeah, exactly. So often it's doing a disservice to your point, right? I mean, so how do you, when you've got your multi-line showroom leader hat on, how do you all think about that? We know what people are buying and buy repeatedly, and those people get the new memos from that line. We do postcards.

51:49So when there's like a new line that's a new collection that's come out from a line, for example, we'll a postcard, a beautifully designed postcard talking about it and we'll include it in the memo packet that they sent, that we're sending out of things they requested. And then that way they know, they go and we have everything online. So we built this really robust online shopping platform from day one. Designers can not only order memos, but they can also order yardage. They can log in and see every single detail they need from the repeat to the minimums to the cut fees to everything. And do they go ahead and go all the way through the order process?

52:31They do. It's been a gradual build. But more and more and more, we are seeing designers buy things at odd hours. And that's why we built it. That's why we built it. But Tammy and I were like, both had younger kids at home and we were first dreaming this up and we wanted it to meet all of our needs as designers, right? We're building this showroom. Let's really think about what our pain points are and build it accordingly. And one of them was that we are our creative time when we can sit quietly and actually dream and come up with beautiful things. And that oftentimes was like early in the morning or late at night or on the weekends.

53:10so we wanted designers to be able to log in and see what the dnet price is see what the the repeat is see if this is even possible for whatever project they're working on uh and order the memo and then it'll be there you know on tuesday and there's still a human being follow-up to that like we have an unbelievable showroom liaison um hannah and so those orders do happen whether for memos or purchasing fabric and then a very, very cheerful Hannah will be emailing you very promptly the next morning to acknowledge that and to follow the process all the way through until it has been delivered to your workroom or wherever you've indicated for it to be shipped.

53:52So there's still very much a human connection and that's important to us because in the grand scheme of things, as much as technology is fantastic, it does not check all the boxes on this whole thing of like providing an unbelievable customer service experience, one that's kind and thoughtful and all those things. Is AI, while we're talking about that, I mean, is artificial intelligence showing up in a helpful and hopefully not menacing way at the moment for the both of you? We're dabbling in it. Yeah. I mean, it's very helpful from a marketing standpoint, just helping with copy. We do a fair amount of marketing on behalf of our lines and in the form of email blasts, dedicated email blasts, Instagram posts, stories, lives, all those types of things.

54:36And it's been helpful there, but we're also really starting to use it to analyze data and come up with these trends for us. So we can see, it could make recommendations on, here's the designers you should be sending these new memos to for this collection based on their historical buying patterns. My husband is a big tech data guy. And so he's been helped. He's like, you're not using AI for that? What is wrong with you? Good. I love him saying that. And I'm like, okay, okay, we're going to do it. And so he gives us these ideas. And then I come into the office and we talk about it. And our team will sometimes run with it, sometimes not.

55:14But we recognize the importance and the time savings, especially for evaluating and analyzing big data sets like we have. We analyze the showroom sales numbers on behalf of our lines, on behalf of our clients. we're always looking to understand what patterns and colorways are selling best in our territory, which is very unique to other territories. So we're getting there. We're not all in, but we are definitely exploring and finding some good use cases for it. It's both exciting and terrifying. No, no, exactly. Exactly. But also, I mean, I do think a lot of opportunity there. I want to talk about the name change because I just want to get some clarity around that.

55:58We've talked about Cloth and Kind quite a bit, but neither of you actually are named Cloth or Kind, right? So let's talk about the decision that you made to finally put your own names on the door. I mean, it's been a long time coming. We've really been thinking about this for a number of years. And I think as the showroom continued to grow and then in the midst of everything, as if we had time to do anything else, we decided also to add Cloth and Kind Gallery. which is here in Athens. And it's a periodic gallery where we showcase, you know, local artisans. It'll be a place where we can showcase collaborations we do with other artists and whatnot.

56:40So it just started to become a wee bit confusing, like which cloth and kind are you talking about? It was like the three-headed monster. And so we, about a year and a half ago, maybe even two years ago, very seriously started thinking about this. But as anybody knows, that's changed the name of their company. It's quite an undertaking and it took so much time and so much effort and so much thinking and people and man hours and all the things. But it ultimately was just kind of a growing up moment for us in many ways that it allowed us to identify our interior design and decoration company on its own merit of not so much of our the merit of our names, but just to distinguish it and let Cloth and Kind really represent these other aspects.

57:28So it was in some ways a necessary and just a strong desire to evolve, honestly. And so it felt, yeah, it kind of felt like we grew up a little bit. Well, it seems as if another growing up moment for both both of you has been bringing on, and we just referenced your COO, which was a big step, and I know a big investment, and something that I think you told me recently. You said we both can't afford to do this and can't afford not to do this. And so tell me how this even came to be. Jessica was in New York City. She's from Michigan, born and raised here. And she, after college, moved to New York City and worked on the business side of the interior design world for the better part of 20 plus years.

58:25Somebody introduced us and said, oh, you need to know Krista from Cloth and Kind because she's in Michigan close to you. And we had lunch. And so we hit it off from that standpoint. And I remember calling Tammy and saying, this woman and her experience is exactly what we need. Because we had been piecing it together, the two of us, you know, managing projects and trying to oversee the showroom with a growing team. And it just, we knew it wasn't going to work anymore. Um, so something had to give and I said, we can't necessarily afford her, but we can't not, we, we can't not have her like we need.

59:04And she felt the same way. She was really excited about the opportunity to come in and help us on both sides of the business. But really, you know, she is very clearly running the showroom now. That's her, her baby. And I've transitioned that to her. I'm still involved at a high level, but she is running that on the day to day, but she does so much more than that. I mean, she really has advised on all manner of things across the business and has just helped us grow and tighten and refine processes and get things streamlined and functioning. And she was just hugely, like, us transitioning from Cloth and Kind to Ramsey and I would not have been possible without her.

59:44Like she just kind of knew how to strategically move us through that process. And just honestly, all the like legal back end and just like all the things that have to happen and really structuring the company so that we're in a position to continue to grow. But in a way that really benefits us and is the most efficient way to do this and most strategic way to do this. And so she just brought like a level of expertise and honestly calmness. Like, Jessica, like, she could not be more counter to mine and Krista's speed. So, while Krista and I are, like, moving at a million miles an hour, Jessica is just, like, slowly taking care of business.

1:00:27Yes. Slowly taking care of business. Slowly and stealthy. We're, like, whirling dervishes, you know? Well, and interestingly, she, among other things, lived through a partnership that did not work out. Correct. In the end. She did. Right. So David Easton and Charlotte Moss got together and it seemed like a perfect partnership and these incredible talents coming together. And let's darn it, let's get that stationary printed and get the name up on the door. But for whatever reason, it wasn't to be. And truthfully, that is rather than being the exception, that is often the norm. Right? It's harder to do than it looks.

1:01:12And often, it's particularly hard to do with two type A personalities who are very strong-willed and strong-headed, and yet here the two of you are. But we're in different parts of the country, so I think that helps. And do you think that it's that? It probably is. It's a huge part of it. It's a huge part of it because she runs her office, I run my office. Again, we're a collective team. but we have autonomy, you know, to do our own things in a way. But the other part of it is just, it really, because people ask us all the time, oh, I would love a business partner. I would love somebody that I can just share all the things with and collaborate with and all.

1:01:54And I can't tell you the number of times we've been asked that over the years and people are actively looking for someone. And I just don't think that that works. I think you have to fall into it the way we did. Neither of us were looking for a business partner. It just happened. And it really was meant to be. In sort of wrapping up, in thinking about the boutique textile lines, and often when the conversation comes up about all these fabric lines, right, and people continually coming out with new lines and designers wanted to bring their own thoughts and dreams to the marketplace, there was always a feeling that there was going to be a big consolidation.

1:02:37Were some of these big fabric houses, we know that Gravit has Dongia and Brunchwig and Lee Joffa and lots of other lines have been consolidated through other companies as well. Do you feel as if we went through this moment of it being the golden age for boutique fabric lines and digital printing has made all sorts of things possible? Do you feel as if we're headed for another moment of consolidation? Or conversely, are these boutique lines so much more interesting and artisanal and there are so many more stories around each one that they are in fact going to start to take the lion's share of the business?

1:03:25And the more established brands are going to either have to find a way to get small themselves in some way to survive or they're going to lose out to these boutique lines. Which is it going to be? Who's going to win? Well, it is an interesting moment in time. We agree. I mean, you have Kravat, you know, not that long ago acquired Caroline Cecil, which is a small boutique textile line. Schumacher is doing the same with, if not acquiring, representing, you know, smaller artisanal lines. So I think the bigger fabric houses are certainly experimenting with that and seeing how they can have some of that smaller line feel, which I think is interesting.

1:04:05But, you know, Tammy and I maintain until the ends of the earth that there is enough room for everybody. Like, we certainly need the Schumachers and the Kravitz and the Thibos of the world. And there's always going to be a place for those in our projects. Not every single textile that we put in our projects or wall coverings, for that matter, is from an artisanal line. but I do think that it's a really amazing time and opportunity for these smaller makers who can now do this they can digitally print a line they can print to order they can have a line and be successful with it and feel like they're making their art and their stories are getting out there into the world and that's really meaningful for people too because I think a lot of them are they're obviously both an artist and an entrepreneur and so for many of them that do figure out the business side of this, they like this.

1:04:55They like the fact that they have autonomy, that they're their boss, that they're creating the art and putting it into the world. And it's so, on some level, like certainly, I guess if some of those lines were approached by big fabric houses who might want to acquire them, I'm sure many of them would seriously consider it. But I have a feeling many of them would be like, I'm good. I'm good over here. I like my life. I I like my life. I like the way I do this. I like the work that I'm able to produce and I get to control it. And, you know, they get to craft the experiences of what showrooms represent them and that type of stuff.

1:05:29And so I think there's a lot of it that's just, it's a unique opportunity because they can use all these various things that are out in the world to promote themselves, you know, and really be successful. And does your having your hand in that world, having your hand in the showroom world and all of these different lines and different artisans that you work with, does it meaningfully inform your design business? And if so, how? 100 % yes. We are so inspired by the lines that we represent and other artisanal lines. And the creativity that is brought and the crazy color combinations and the, you know, it's just, it's endlessly fascinating and inspiring to us.

1:06:20So, you know, we do start with our lines, not because we feel like we have to. In your own projects. Yeah, not because we feel like we have to, but because we brought them on for a reason. We brought them on because we really, really appreciate what they're bringing into the world and want to incorporate them. And we tell our clients, our design clients, that we are by no means limited to, we might show you some things from our showroom, we have an advantageous pricing structure if they are buying something from our showroom, but we travel the world over and we source from the world over. And that's part of the beauty of our projects, I think.

1:07:05And that will never go away. Well, I'm thrilled that your business has evolved in the way that it has. I'm excited that the Midwest is being so well served by the two of you and by your whole operation. And I'm excited that your own names are finally on the doors of the design firm. and I'm eager to come to Winnetka when the space is really ready and see what you're doing there. But I want to thank you both for making the time. Thank you so much, Janice. It's been an honor, really has been. It's been a great conversation. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you'd like to keep up with the latest design industry news, visit us online at businessofhome.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, browse job listings, and join our BOH Insider community for access to online workshops, a free print subscription, and much more.

1:08:02If you have a note for the podcast, drop us a line at podcast at businessofhome.com. If you're enjoying these conversations, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps others to discover the show. This show was produced by Fred Nikolaos and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you next week. Amen.