Meet the 'enfant terrible' of French wallcoverings and textiles

0:02This is Business of Home. I'm your host, Dennis Scully. Every week I'll be speaking with leaders and innovators from all corners of the home industry. My guest this week is Olivier Thienpont, the CEO of LATS North America. Launched in Toulouse, France in 1985, LATS is the opposite of a heritage textile brand. Its founder wanted to break with stale tradition and present vivid artistic patterns, work with new technologies, and push mills to innovate. Known for challenging conventions, L.A.T. was once described as an enfant terrible in the high-end world of French fabric and wall covering. I spoke with Olivier about the surprising resilience of the high-end market, the difference between American and French customers, and why no technological disruption can change what makes the design industry so special.

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2:55Apply for membership today at ernesta.com slash boh. And now on with the show. We're all just back from Paris. You and I were talking just before we came on air. I was hoping that you had a chance to rest and recover a little bit before today's conversation. I know it's a lot going on. Tell me what you do at Deco Off. So we show up and we're just going around seeing product and saying hello to people, right? You've got a much more important job, high pressure. Tell me. Yes. So Deco Off is really the event of the year, at least for us, because we don't do any trade shows in North America. We feel that there's plenty of US uh clients and press coming to deco off uh and it has grown grown quite a bit over the years now we have a home advantage because we're a french company so we have our showroom uh right in the deco of area so which is very convenient um and uh i think it's uh still a very significant show uh i don't feel like there was uh any less attendance than prior years if anything we had a lot of people mentioning how many actually Americans they were seeing and hearing when they were walking around.

4:18It's a really fantastic show and very unique in the sense that you're not in any convention center. The fact that you're in Saint-Germain, in Paris, that you can have a coffee or lunch next door with a client or with any contact is just very, very pleasant. Well, that's what I'm always wondering. If you get to go and get a little bit of a read of how the show is going for everyone else and what everyone else is showing, and if you pay attention to that or if that's significant to you to see what everyone else is doing. Yes, absolutely. So I think that's really part of the show is you have to be curious and keep an eye out of what is everyone else doing?

5:05What products are they launching? How did they style their windows in their showrooms? And, you know, it's important for us and the design team to, you know, explore, see not only what competitors are doing, but there's usually always a lot of museum exhibitions going on. And I think for clients, it's really the perfect excuse because not only do you get to go to Paris and you see all the novelties, but everyone's really taking the time, you know, a few extra days before or after to, you know, to see, you know, even to go shopping. And to shop, sure. Some good sales are being held. So, you know, and as you know, it's pretty convenient to get around Europe by train.

5:53So, you know, within two hours, you're in London, within an hour and a half, you're in Brussels. So it's pretty easy to get around. Don't bring a lot of luggage if you're taking the Eurostar. That's what I learned on this trip, Olivier. Oh, really? Yes. I took that train to London and I might have had too many suitcases, frankly. And somehow I thought magical people were going to appear and take all your luggage for you and escort you. But that doesn't happen on the Eurostar. Not yet. Maybe that's an option. Lesson learned there. But as you say, the rest of Europe is so accessible and I see many designers will tack on an extra trip.

6:32This year, many of us, of course, went to London for Design Destination London, which I'm curious to hear your thoughts on as well, because that seems to be another event that's gotten a big following and a lot of people are going to. You might have to show up there, Olivier. I don't know. Do you have a presence in London? How do you show up there? We do have a presence. We have a showroom in the London Design Center. But for now, Paris is still the main draw for international crowd. So the rest of the year, that beautiful showroom of yours in Paris, what's going on the rest of the time? Well, it's unlike in the U.S., it's a ground floor showroom.

7:08And so in Europe, we actually still have a significant retail business. whereas in the US, the majority of the business is to the design community. And that's why it's really a flagship. We change the decor at least twice a year. There's another design event, Paris Design Week in September, which is also during Maison et Objets, which is another very, very important week. And we actually see quite a few designers from the U.S. going around that time as well. I'm so curious about that, Olivier, the retail aspect of it in Europe. And so, as you were just describing, you're servicing these retail clients.

7:53So, what are Parisians buying and doing? Are they coming in and having curtains made? I mean, tell me how they're interacting with wall coverings and fabric with you on their own. it's not uncommon uh in france uh for an end user for example wanting to redecorate part of the house maybe just change a wallpaper or maybe reupholster a sofa and what they'll do is they'll contact an installer or they will contact a workroom and they'll select a fabric or a wallpaper themselves and then basically contract the workroom or the installer to execute the job. I think in the US, the system works a little bit different.

8:41We're to the trade only. Typically, it's all through designers. So it's a bit of a different, I think, culture. Yeah, I'm so curious about it because in the US, there's this perception that people wouldn't know where to go for, to your point, somebody who's going to make the curtains or someone who's going to come and install the wallpaper. It's much more challenging. Do Parisians just know people? Do Do they have contractors and people that they can just call in and say, hey, come and hang some wallpaper for me or friends? Well, there are actually quite a few retail stores that carry various wallpaper lines and fabric lines.

9:18And you can actually just walk in. They're like boutiques, ground floor boutiques where you can walk in. Even work rooms that have like a really nice window and they've got a wonderful display where you can basically walk in and have a coffee, select a fabric. select a wall covering, and yeah, without actually the intervention of a designer. It's so interesting. I mean, it seems like such an opportunity in the U.S., but it never has materialized into something meaningful. And I don't know if it's a big percentage of your business in Paris, the retail customer, but it sounds like it is. Yeah, actually, the retail business is still very significant in Europe, but in the U.S., it's close to non-existent.

10:02Exactly. There are obviously, you know, if you go, especially you can see that in Florida, but I would say anywhere across the US, you do have quite a few wallpaper resellers that do offer installation services. So it's not that you do have to come to the ELIT's showroom. There are resellers where you can perfectly walk in, select a wall covering. And yeah, more often than not, they'll offer installation services as well. Yeah. Well, I don't know. One day when a Gentic AI is just shopping for everyone, I wonder if we're going to have to figure that out. We'll talk more about that later. But coming back to Paris, what was your sense?

10:45So a lot of American designers came over. Did they seem like their business was doing well? Were they in high spirits? They usually are when they come to Paris, but what was your sense? Yes, they usually are. And I feel, you know, the great parts of the U.S. market is everyone is always very enthusiastic, very positive. They're always very excited to see new things. And so the atmosphere, I will say, is always great. And we feel that they are very busy. You know, we had a great year last year and it feels like we're off to a great start. So, you know, with all of the, you know, tariffs and everything that happened where obviously everybody was holding their breath, you know, in the end, you know, it turned out to go pretty well.

11:33To go pretty well. And did that surprise you? Were you anticipating it to be a more challenging year? I was certainly anticipating it to be a more challenging year. Yes, yes. And I think we all were. I think we all were anticipating it to be a rough year, but in the end, it turned out well. And, you know, I guess, you know, the market has proven to be very, very resilient. And I think as long as demand is there, it seems like at least the stock market was, you know, keeping up. We're in the luxury segment. so I think in that respect you know people were just you know they just kept going and yeah and the demand was there yeah well hopefully the recent stock market correction doesn't doesn't throw any of this off of course and and how quickly will the product arrive in the state so it used to be you'd come to Paris and part of the reason you went to Paris because it wasn't going to be another three months six months before you saw it in the U.S.

12:33right but now it's a it's a much shorter lead time. Yes, correct. So typically for us, Europe is now about a month, I would say, ahead. So they have a bit of a head start. But usually by the second half of February, we're shipping out all of the novelties to our agent, to our reps across the country. Once it hits end of February, early March, they have everything in hand to go and see clients. And then we're installing this place and the wings and the boys in the showrooms. Right. So will the D &D showroom get a bit of a facelift with all the new things coming in? Yes. The facelift usually happens around March because, you know, usually we also have to get some furniture in.

13:19It's not just about changing the wall covering and the fabrics. Usually we change the furnishings as well. So, yeah, we just expanded the New York showroom. So now we have additional display. luckily we have a great team in France who helps us with all the proposals and and the stylist helping us with setting all that up let's tell people a little bit many of our listeners might not be overly familiar with LATS and it's a it's a relatively young company often we're talking to heritage brands that are going into the archives and going back hundreds of years tell us about the origin of LATS and what we should know right so yes you're right uh elitist is not a heritage brand um because uh we are celebrating almost four decades though so the company started in 1988 and was founded by patrice maraud who still today is actually very active in the company especially on uh you know the the supplier side and the sourcing side and in product and uh it started off as a company uh only doing wall covering he had worked in textiles and wall covering before.

14:31Wasn't very happy with the direction it was going and a little frustrated with the product that was coming out. And he saw really an opportunity to build his own company. And, you know, it's the classic story starting in a space that he was allowed to use from a friend, packing boxes, picking up the telephone, going around retail stores with, you know, wallpaper trying to sell rolls. And it was very, very successful. From there on, a few years later, started textiles. And yeah, so we've actually been doing fabrics and wall coverings for almost four decades. So I was trying to think, and maybe you can help me, Olivier, what was Patrice seeing that he was frustrated with?

15:17Where did he think this opportunity was? Because so often it seems like such a crowded space, right? There's tons of wallpaper. There's tons of fabric. what do you mean you've got something new you've got something different what did he not like about what was out there at the time in the in the late 80s what was he seeing and what was he frustrated by yes i think he it's not that he didn't like uh i think it's more of seeing an opportunity to do things a little more uh contemporary and a little bit more forward thinking uh rather than for example doing traditional damasks and and and traditional prints and working from archives he felt that there was so much inspiration out there through the art community or fashion industry and from traveling.

16:04He was already, when he was working for a fabric company, he was traveling in India in the 60s and the 70s for months on end, you know, sourcing silks and different fabrics. And so he's very well traveled and, you know, he had a lot of inspiration and he just felt like, you know, there was an opportunity to do something a little more forward thinking. Well, that's it, isn't it? He really he wanted to be more innovative. He wanted to be more contemporary. He was willing, it seems like, to experiment with different materials. I know at one point he had reached out to this company that was working on manufacturing brassieres to better understand how they were studying their fabrics and materials and how they interacted.

16:50Yes? Yes. And even to this day, we actually really love pushing the artisans and the mills in doing new things. For example, we've worked with suppliers that had never produced any wall covering and that used to work in the fashion industry. And then, you know, we, through having a good relationship and through working closely together, we've been able to develop, for example, 3D thermoform wall coverings. So what does that mean? What does that mean, 3D thermoform? So in the garment industry, you have the women's wear that is made out of styrofoam that is covered with jersey-like fabric. Right.

17:36And very interesting material. And we were able actually to convert that onto a non-woven backing. And with Thermoform embossing, we were able to do our own designs. And that's how we got 3D acoustic wall coverings. art designers and i think that's really what's at the core here is uh they're um true artists uh so they're constantly making prototypes for example they're hand beading um they're they're sculpting plaster they're working uh maquettes made out of clay that we send to suppliers to then convert into papier-mâché designs and so on and so on so this it's really what's at the core is is is really that creativity because there's i think a lot of jobbers out there who select uh what's available at the mills and they'll make their own color story um we're a little bit uh on the opposite end of the spectrum and uh we're always very keen on doing our own thing and and and alter things and so on you know that being said there's there's often really nice things to be to be found at some of these mills who can be very very creative but we have the tendency to always alter it and bring our own designs and do our own prototypes.

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19:33So when does it transition from poor Patrice having to go door to door with the wallpaper, and is it the showroom that opens? And tell me how the business grows from those early days. Yes, so in the early days, obviously the focus was very much on France, which is a relatively large market in and of itself. And, you know, still today, it's our second largest market. It is, okay. So the U.S. is our number one market, but uh europe as a whole obviously um still leads but yeah it's uh developing france in the early years and then little by little uh the the adjacent countries we export to over 100 countries uh today and we've been active in the united states for over 20 years as as things go uh at some point you transition in your most mature markets to starting your own entities, to starting your own flagship showrooms and having your exclusive reps, which is the case in most major markets today.

20:42Yeah, which I want to talk about because you come over to the States and was Dongia your first showroom partner? Actually, it was not. We first started off at Scalamandre. Oh. Oh. In the very, very, very early days. Okay. Interesting. Yes, but that was really before my time. But as you know, at some point with caramandry, it didn't go so well. And then we had to transition. Right. Had to jump off that ship. We had to jump off that ship. And then we joined Dandia in most markets. And that was actually very successful. It allowed us to have broad distribution across the United States. And at some point, you do start to reach a level where you hit a ceiling.

21:36That was the case in New York, for example, where we felt there wasn't much more room to grow, where the brand just needed to have more focus, dedicated team, especially on the road, but also having our own showroom. So we started exploring. Where do you open the showroom in New York? Obviously, there's the D &D. There's 200 legs. And even still today, I think for wall covering and fabrics, D &D is the destination. So, yeah, we explored if there was any available space there. And, yeah, lucky enough, there was two spaces in which one was the perfect size. Well, I'm always curious, to your point, about outgrowing your multi-line showroom in a market And maybe you get a sense, I never know, is it a dollar amount?

22:24Listen, if we hit a million dollars in sales, we're going to go out on our own. Is it just a sense that you're working with enough designers that you can sustain really having your own showroom? How did you think about it? Right. So it's always a risk. And there isn't a fixed dollar amount, I would say. It's just, you know, you feel the atmosphere. You feel, you know, how much time is being dedicated to your brand. How is your display? You know, how's the team? i think if you're in a multi-line showroom and you feel but that the potential is still there and and and you're getting the the right attention then i don't think there's any reason to move out it's just when you start seeing that it's plateauing and when you want to take certain actions or or more activate the brand inside the showroom and when you feel a certain reluctance or resistance or or or people not really going along then that's when i guess you have to start exploring options and that's what we did in new york and then about four years ago we opened florida and los angeles at the same time and we're now about to open dallas in the spring and i think uh our timing was was was great uh because we signed our leases in 2020 for uh florida and los angeles and we basically opened in 2021, right when the market was roaring back.

23:46So we were able to ride that wave. Yeah. So that was lucky for us. Great timing. And yeah, now in Dallas, it's a major market. And I think hopefully we'll do quite well there. Well, I mean, as you say, you've had great timing all around. Sadly, Dongia in 2020 goes away. And really, I want people to remember Dongia as it once was, because back in the day, it was such a powerful showroom. All of the top designers were coming through those doors. And I think as you and I have talked about, you were lucky in the early days to be there and to have that exposure. I don't know if on your own, you could have built up that designer following.

24:32No, so it's definitely much more complicated to knock on doors of independent agents one by one and set up representation. So the fact that we were able to be present across major markets in the US definitely helped. Donggyo had fantastic showrooms, fantastic attendance, fantastic brands. And they had a very good team. uh even today uh there's uh we have a few ex dong ya employees at the company those are really stellar so uh yeah so that was that was definitely great for the brands uh but then as you know it started plateauing for them and then they had a really really large spaces yes so uh very uh you know intense uh intense leases and uh they had to start scaling it back and uh you know we felt it wasn't going in the right direction.

25:27So we started moving to independent agent showrooms in some markets and then in other markets, we felt it was the right time to open our own. So you got a sense that things weren't going in the right direction with Dongia, even before you left, because you left years before they actually filed for bankruptcy. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So we had left for a while already in New York and then we started moving to independent showrooms in other markets because we felt that was the right move, transitioning from more to more independent showrooms that don't have their own brand. Because obviously, you know, for Dongya, there was always a big interest to push their own brands, you know, which Rebelli, Dongya, Dominique Kiefer, and so forth.

26:11Which is always challenging when the showroom has their own stable of brands. And of course, they want to promote those, right? And there's a feeling that there's a competition with the house brands and that's never ideal. Yes. And it's actually quite unique in our industry, right? Sometimes when you think about it, that all these brands are being represented essentially by competitors. It's not that we have the same offering, you know, it's a very different look. But at the end of the day, some of the offer overlaps. But this is how it goes in our industry. It's one of the many quirks of our industry, which is sometimes confusing.

26:53But coming back to you opening showrooms, and we mentioned expanding in the D &D, which is a big commitment in and of itself, and I know lots of challenges around the D &D building. But even this showroom in Dallas, I wonder, I assume that this means you imagine showrooms continuing to have an important role in how designers interact with product, how they specify. even though we're told attendance is down around the country at all these different design centers. I take it that for you, it's still worth this investment because it's such an important revenue generator and just exposure for you.

27:38But tell me how you think about it. Yes. So I think showrooms really give you the opportunity to showcase and also, you know, radiate the DNA and the look of your brands. we also try to create showroom spaces where people feel very comfortable and they feel like they want to stick around maybe have a coffee clients often telling us that they really love coming into our showroom and they actually sometimes they sit down they have a conversation so they don't just walk in shop and walk out and and that's really the atmosphere that we want to create and recreate in Dallas. Because a lot of showrooms these days, I feel when I go out and about and I explore, I can easily walk into five different showrooms and nobody saw me, nobody said hello, and it feels a little cold.

28:28So we really want to counter that and create a warm atmosphere. And you'll always have designers that don't go to showrooms, whether they're too far away or they feel that they're too busy. But there's, you know, a large segment that still loves to go to a showroom. And they want to feel the fabric. They want to have a conversation in person and take the time to really see and feel because at the end of the day, everything is very tactile. How does the color look in artificial light? How does it look in daylight? Yeah, maybe shop for alternatives and have someone really assist them in person with their project.

29:06So we're definitely doubling down on this and, you know, especially in major markets. But the key is, you know, as for every business, you need to have the, you know, the right people and the right space and people, you know, people want to do business with people that they like and they want to go to a space that they enjoy. And at the same time as you're investing in showrooms, you're also heavily investing in the website and online and social. I mean, so tell me how you think about those investments relative to the showrooms and how important they are. Right. So we invest a lot in photography and in video because, as we just discussed, there's also a whole segment that potentially only shops online right or explores online um you know some people do both uh but it's important that we can make the people dream and that we can really showcase different settings uh of how our product can be used um so we very often uh rent uh beautiful spaces or a house in the mediterranean where we have stylists and photographers sending product installation as you can imagine it's very costly but it really allows us to really stand apart and make people make people dream and see different settings and i think that's something that we'll definitely continue on doing even today i would say with all the 3d renderings and ai products and all that you can you can create videos with a prompt but i mean to this day i I still haven't really seen any of those photos or videos, at least for our industry, that are really up to the level where it needs to be, especially the fact that it's all texture and tactile.

31:03You just can't have the same effect as photographing the real product. Nothing can rival you renting the house in the Mediterranean, right? And bringing in the stylus and all that. No, I completely agree. What I'm curious about, because I'm frustrated sometimes, Olivier, when I see companies not investing in photography, where they're not investing enough, where they're skimping out on that, where the product is incredible, but the photography is second rate. And I wonder, what is it culturally about your company? Who's setting the tone for what an important priority that is? Is that you? Is that Patrice?

31:42Is that who's saying this is where we're going to spend our money because this is, And I love the way you said radiate the DNA of your brand. This is how people need to see you through these impressive images. Right. It's really a team effort. Obviously, we have our marketing department and we have our artistic director. And there's obviously Patrice that contributes to that as well. But it's almost impossible today to really have all the talent in-house. So we do work with agencies and we do work with stylists and obviously photographers that really help us translate the message or the image that we're trying to bring.

32:20You know, we have to explain to them, you know, obviously what the collection is about. And then we have people sourcing different locations that sourcing different, you know, types of furniture, you know, could be modern, could be mid-century, really depending on the collection, depending on the location. and then really put something together where you can really sell the product. And designers, they're often really complimenting us when they go to our collections and they see the photography and they're just, wow, the photography is just so amazing. And it really helps me sell the product also to their clients because we very often are asked for the photography, sometimes in different colors than the ones we shot.

33:02Unfortunately, we can't shoot every single color, but we do the best we can. Well, what I'm wondering about is the percentage of how you look at it as a line item on your budget. Do you say, okay, we're going to spend 5 % of our revenue on marketing? Or how do you think about it? Because it's a lot of money today to feed the website, to feed social media, right? It's a lot of money. How do you arrive at the amount you're comfortable spending is, I guess, really my question. So it's really a percentage. it's really a percentage you know you see where your annual sales are you know uh how much is uh the business has grown and it's a it's a ratio um just like uh what's the percentage what do you use what do you say is it you say five percent you say ten percent what is it yeah it's something that we're going to keep in okay okay but it's a bunch of money yeah yes yes yes yes it's a substantial budget obviously as you can see uh because video and uh photography does not come cheap and uh yeah but you know we want to embrace new technology as well so for example with the paris olympics uh we did uh a little uh ai video where we had an air balloon take off in the streets of paris and uh you know the the balloon itself was in is one of our fabrics so i think you know you have to embrace new technology i don't think i don't think we should um uh uh neglect it uh but I think there's certain formats, there's certain opportunities, and I think you really have to judge where it's appropriate to deploy it.

34:39It certainly seems as if AI, which is getting increasingly better by the minute, it's probably improved just since we started talking. Claude has probably introduced some new tool just since this conversation began. So of course, you're going to start to incorporate it in some way. I'm sure your marketing team is trying to find clever ways for AI to create animated images or help them in any number of ways. And I don't know if you can imagine in back of house, artificial intelligence creating efficiencies for you. I don't know if you're experimenting with that or not, but I would assume that's coming.