The Thursday Show: David Netto makes an acquisition. Plus: What happened at New York design week?

25:02But I do think, yes, generally speaking, people like Design Week. I didn't hear anyone complain that there wasn't enough or that it wasn't cool enough. So I think it was, you know, certainly a good event by those standards. words my main thing that I did that I feel somewhat qualified to talk about is going to the two shows ICFF and of course as you mentioned the the debut show Shelter yes that we talked about a few weeks ago here on the show which is really interesting it's just interesting to have a new you know big tent show in New York so that was interesting to see how it went you know how both shows went they were also only 10 blocks away from each other so it was interesting just to sort of like see both of those shows and dive in a little bit on that part of Design Week.

25:41Well, and what was your sense? And what was the vibe? What did you see? Yeah, well, I mean, starting with Shelter, Shelter was certainly very cool. So Shelter is like, you know, afternoon light is very much like an e-commerce site for the cool kids. It's all the sort of like hipster ceramic brands, like cool upstarts, interesting avant-garde designers. And, you know, they were definitely in full force, along with, you know, like Carl Hansen was there and USM was there and Blue Dot was there. So it wasn't entirely kind of like the avant-garde. There was a good mix. It was a cool show. It was like very, it was like low key sounds weird, but like they allowed people to bring dogs.

26:16And so there were kind of dogs wandering around and there was cash and carry. So you could buy something if you wanted. And it had kind of like an experimental feel, like trying different things and shaking things up, you know, like the normal, you know, template of the trade show is definitely like a shakeup of that. I definitely saw a lot of the people that you'd want to see at a show like that. There were a lot of tastemakers, a lot of designers went. I do, you know, most people who showed there, because obviously it was a lower price for vendors to show there than it would have been to show at ICFF in one.

26:43And so they had a lot of first timers at a shelter, most of whom were like really thrilled about how it went. There were some people who were like, well, I could use more foot traffic. And, you know, you're going to hear that grumbling, certainly. But generally the vibe was very good there. And it was cool to see something new that actually felt new, not just like the same thing in a different building, you know. And ICFF, what was your sense there? Well, we have this conversation every year, Dennis, but ICFF is very tricky to wrap your head around because you can talk to someone and they will say like, it's the best one ever.

27:14And then you like walk 30 feet and they'll like pull you aside and be like, it's never been worse. Like you really get like the range of opinions. I mean, I don't know if either one of those is true. A couple of things. One thing is I think for sure, you know, how Claire and Odile from Wanted Design took over the festival a few years ago and brought, you know, wanted design and ICFF together. I guess that had happened before, but they really took it over in 2022. And I think like it really feels like a cohesive show now, like it doesn't feel like a bunch of things, it feels like one thing. And I thought the sort of show making was really well done, you could wander through different sections and discover things.

27:50It all felt very cohesive. I think the vendor count was a little bit down over last year, not like extremely, but a little bit lower, but it didn't didn't really feel like that? Because they did a good job of kind of packing and everyone together. So the energy was very high. In general, the vibe was good. You know, maybe the numbers were kind of flat compared to last year. But you know, it did not seem like a bummer of a show by any means. Well, I was particularly curious after we saw from High Point that a lot of the international visitors stayed away. I was curious because ICFF is such an international show, and different countries from all over the world bring product and represent there.

28:28And so I was curious to see if those numbers and those participants were impacted in a meaningful way. Well, I think we should wait for the official numbers. But I will say anecdotally, like there were certainly lots of international brands like that. I think the theme, one of the themes was, you know, Brazilian brands, and there were a lot of them. There was a section dedicated to French craftsmanship. There was an incredibly cool Japanese company called the Miyazaki Chair Factory that just produced the most beautiful, you know, wood chairs. So I definitely didn't feel like, you know, international companies didn't show up.

28:59It was interesting just because like, you know, look, ICFF is very different than High Point. And I tried to talk about tariffs with everyone I met, you know, apologies for bringing up the T word again. But it just didn't make as much of a difference to them, right? Because a lot of them are manufacturing domestically or in Europe, you know, their price point is higher, they're in a different part of the market, it didn't really seem to make an impact for them. There aren't that many people, you know, producing a million of their product in China. So it didn't matter as much at ICFF, which was, maybe not surprising, but an interesting little data point.

29:29But it sounds like for the most part, you feel it was pretty upbeat and shelter a welcome addition to the New York design scene. Yeah, absolutely. I'm really excited to see next year. I think it proved that both that part of town and that weekend can sustain two shows and I think generate real returns for the people who showed up there. So I'm excited to see what both shows look like next year, especially ideally if we all survive to 26 and get a fix. If housing turns around and it's a slightly sunnier home economy next year, I think the groundwork is there. So let's build on it. That will be great.

30:04Well, I look forward to being back at ICFF. I was sorry to miss it, but it happens. All right. That's it for the news, but there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com, including June's can't miss design events and Sean Lowe's advice on how AI might impact the design industry. We'll be back in a minute, but first, a quick break.

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31:41and we're back i'm joined now by interior designer design author and now once again entrepreneur david netto david i am so glad to have you well dennis it's my pleasure thank you for having me back on the show thrilled to have you back and particularly excited to be talking about woodard weave a great american brand that you have swooped in at the 11th hour and saved And I'm grateful to you for that. And I'm excited to talk about it. I'm so glad you feel that way because that's exactly the way I felt about Woodard Weave. I would definitely say that they were one of my top three vendors and resources that I depended upon to use in all kinds of projects.

32:22And I came at it just thinking, well, I can't allow this to go away for my sake. And then the more I learned about it as a business, the more I believed in its upside potential for everybody else's sake. I'll bet it's one of those brands that so many people have seen on the pages of magazines in projects from Bunny Williams and great designers of that ilk and didn't realize that's what it was or who it was. But let's tell people a little bit about this brand and how you now came to be its owner. Right. So, well, I actually heard from Bunny spontaneously. I got a nice email from her saying thank you for saving me.

33:03Oh, is that right? And what a good idea she thought it was. So the outpouring of thanks and enthusiasm from people like Bunny and Ken Falk and lots of decorators in the UK, like Adam Bray, who I wouldn't have thought maybe had any awareness of what I believe, has made me feel very good about this. So there was a time when Americana was considered extremely chic as a platform upon which to then be cool and more contemporary. And Woodard Weave was an essential part of that story. So that's exactly how I used it. And I think in the 90s, the 80s, the company was founded in 1981 or 82. There was a lot more sophistication around the use of American humble shaker, upstate, Pennsylvania Dutch components in making sophisticated rooms, which has somewhat gone into eclipse since then.

34:01Do you feel? Well, everybody wants, you know, upscale West Elm. They don't think they want color or pattern, but I'm going to try to persuade them differently. I think this is going to help bring them around and swing that in the other direction. Good. You know, I'm trying to talk up something that I actually believe in. So I don't want to be the nature of these rugs is very understated. The reason that they were easily, as you correctly pointed out, not the first noticeable thing in a room is because that's exactly what they were designed, how they were designed to perform. They are, you know, the platform on which you notice all kinds of other things, but they give a sense of both cheerfulness in terms of their palette and patina in terms of their implication of age that is very essential to the kinds of rooms that I like to try to do.

34:55The go-to use for Woodard for me has very often been staircase runners because you get one move in a back stair or front stair. You don't have a bunch of furniture. Maybe you're not using a lot of art and the runner is going to carry the success of that space and Woodard again and again, I've come back to and gotten that result from. Well, so I love this notion that you were so familiar with them because as you say, they were one of your top vendors and it sounds as if you got word that, and I don't know, if I recall, the founder was advanced in years and perhaps was just deciding, you know, enough is enough.

35:38Yes. Tom was, I think, is 85 and just decided to... I mean, I would love to retire if somebody would buy me, but you can't sell anybody a decorating business. So we got an email. I had no personal acquaintance with Tom, but I do remember his wife and he, Blanche, had a shop in the East 70s that was very respected. And so we got an email blast a few months ago, saying that they, after 50 years, decided to close down. And I didn't hesitate 10 seconds to write back and say, is there any discussion to be had about buying the company? I really can't bear to think of this going away. I'm such a fan of yours.

36:17And then we started talking in February about doing this and closed like two weeks ago. So it came together pretty quickly, it sounds like. It did. It did. There was a couple of other interested buyers at some point who I never knew by name, but I think I won in the end because Tom believed in my passion for what he and his wife stood for aesthetically. I paid him what he wanted. In the end, I didn't pay what opening ask was, but I didn't negotiate aggressively once it became something that I thought was appropriate because I wanted to end up owning this thing and I thought it was absolutely worth every penny.

36:56Did he give you an indication of what actually you would be buying beyond the name itself? I mean, did you got a sense? Yeah, there's an archive of designs, both discontinued and never produced. And there is a significant stock. We're well stocked. There is a brilliant small staff, decades of experience, none of whom will be allowed to leave their chairs, who are more valuable than anybody. I need them now more than they need me. But most importantly to me probably and the last discovery that i really kind of investigated in detail was the wonderful relationship with the factory overseas that makes the rugs which is why they're the right price uh and um that is a gentleman who was friends with tom and blanche since they started they essentially started the company together since that person was a student at columbia and they all met and they became friends and decided to create these rugs based on the American, you know, sort of Amish shaker point of view.

37:59And I believe that the manufacturer that I'm speaking of was also godfather to the children of the owners. It was a very, very close relationship. And I needed, I especially needed that to stay in place because that person, whoever, and i've and i've come to to know him a bit um has been making the rugs has a real eye and is just as passionate about them being right looking right as the american founders so you're headed over there soon i i assume i am i am as soon as possible okay but that relationship is uh is one of the assets that i acquired with the business because it's certainly something that we can build on and make all kinds of potentially other products with what are you know to me it's a great American brand.

38:45It sounds delusional to then mention Ralph Lauren or something that really is an enormous business as well as a great American brand. But I would say in terms of the interiors context, that the kind of point of view that that stands for is absolutely something that Woodard has. It hasn't been diluted and it's easy to like, you know, 50 % of the people looking at something, if the more sophisticated it is, might not like it, it could be great, but it wouldn't necessarily be scalable because it would be too difficult or intellectual or something for many customers. And that's not true about this business.

39:20You know, there's something there for everybody and it's very hard to dislike it, which makes me think it's going to grow. And that applications could come to fruition like making the mats for kinkly picnic boats. You know, that's a great American brand in Maine. Right, sure. If you could figure out how to make these rugs waterproof, they would look great in boats like that. The whole aesthetic is Maine already. I've been hearing from people, very cool people with houses in Maine who want to replace their beloved wooded runners and rugs. And so, you know, alliances like that are in my head. I haven't pushed the button on any of these conversations yet, but I'm going to be looking for ways to jump into other categories.

40:02Yeah, it certainly seems like it would be easy to imagine some great brand partners. and I could imagine some big fabric houses that we all know and love bringing this line in and having it fit right in from day one. It was once in great multi-line showrooms like Schumacher. Yeah. And they'll be hearing from me. There's no problem with the product and there's no problem with the aesthetic, the style of the product. The problem is when you get older, you lose the energy to promote and it's become invisible by multiple vectors but you know i think when tom was widowed he uh quite understandably in that you know stage of grief just didn't want to promote it and share shared himself publicly in the same way that he did when he was with his wife and they were building the business so that's i'm going to take that over for my own sake and also to honor the potential here.

41:01Yeah, no, no, absolutely. I'm curious for you. I mean, was this something you had at all been thinking about? Had you been missing the entrepreneurial days? My God, no, Dennis. I mean, I'm thinking about an island, like the last scene in Trading Places. Remember? Looking good, Billy Ray. I thought I was on the five-yard line. But apparently, I'm not going to be able to escape. Well, here's what I'll say. I mean, know, you know, about my own dreams, such as, as, as I may still have left to me, every person in a service business probably dreams of being in a product business and making, being a merchant as you, the lovely term you applied in the beginning.

41:41One of the people that I most admire working with actually, cause I have a line with her is Lulu Little of so I'm a huge fan. She is someone with great business instincts and kind of the moxie for the appetite for risk that has resulted in her single-handedly saving the British rattan industry by buying at the moment of its being about to close the last rattan factory in Leicester. Everyone else has gone to Asia to make that stuff. And Lulu is very much a believer in British industry and craft being irreplaceable. and in explaining to people what the value is that justifies the prices, which are then unavoidable if it's manufactured domestically in England.

42:26I was with Lulu as a customer shopping. I became, I think, still her best performing designer collaboration for the lighting collection I have with her. And when I go to those factories and meet the people that she's employing, like entire families in Leicester weaving these fantastic lights. I was jealous most of all of her entrepreneurship. And so I'm pretending to be lazy, but I actually really wanted to do this in some form. I just didn't know what. I knew I didn't want it to be furniture because I had done that with the baby furniture, you know, 15 years ago. Yeah. And as I recall, the baby furniture was quite a production back in the day.

43:07It was culturally very, very successful. It was not the business that I came for. When you're young, nobody tells you you can't do something. I just looked at that and was convinced because it was such a desired idea for the marketplace. I thought there'd be this huge business there. And in fact, furniture is much more complicated than any service aspect of what else I've done. You know, it's heavy. It costs a lot to move it. There are currency fluctuations that totally upend your strategy when you start working with factories overseas. And it was very, very complicated as soon as I got into it.

43:47And I was dreaming of getting out of it as soon as I got into it. But here I am again. Well, and do we need to call Claude Arpels and get the band back together and have him step in to help you with Woodard? It would be nice to have a business partner in exactly the way you are implying, but I didn't get organized fast enough. You know, I needed to jump on this. There was a closed date relating to the warehouse lease and the employees had all been informed and God forbid were making plans, you know, to get other jobs. And there was no time to go around looking for investment or executive partnership.

44:23This just had to happen. It was like buying a painting at auction. You can't committee that. Great art collections are never made by pension funds or investment banks that think that that's a category that they want to get into because it has to be so impulsive. You have to jump at the opportunity. You have to have the autocratic control to recognize the opportunity. And I'm pleased to say so far, because it doesn't feel like anything but a good idea, especially given the public reaction that I've enjoyed that that happened here. Well, so, I mean, I'm glad that you mentioned that about the staff, because I was a little bit worried that everybody saw the business winding down and was starting to head for the exits.

45:08It was terrifying. Yeah. When I started talking about buying it, I didn't know who might have already accepted another job or what the status of the relationship with the factory was. But that all happily fell into place. Those people, I've met them all now. They believe in me. They know that I'm there for the right reason. And they remember when this company was quite dominant and visible in the 80s and 90s. you know, when decorators like Jed Johnson and Mariette Himes Gomez were big, big customers and Woodard was all over the magazines and they know that can happen again. Well, and as you say, when Americana and all of that was also all over the magazines and that whole look and style and Barbara Streisand would always be on the cover of AD, right?

45:58With all of her collections. She's my next call. There you go. I got to lock her in. We need Barbara. I'm certain she'll be excited about this. Good. God, I hope so. It's not just when it was. For me, it's right now because I use these rugs in all my projects. I wouldn't have a book without them. And the first thing I did was send the warehouse employees my book. I wanted them to know that there was this whole other side to the way I looked at what they were doing that maybe hadn't been in the history of the company so far. It really had a future. Well, that's what I think the huge opportunity is.

46:37And again, it could be brand partners. It could be a creative team that you get to work with. I know that you're very friendly with Helen at Fuzco. So, I mean, I don't know. Right. When Barbara didn't take my call, I called Helen and I said, I want to hire Fuzco. We're talking about Helen Rice, who's the proprietor of a very hip graphic design and corporate branding identity firm called Fuzco. So in combining a sensibility of someone like Helen, who's going to give the Americana vibe a futuristic thread through it, that's exactly the kind of moves we're going to make here. We're going to make this look cool because it is cool.

47:21There's an element of deja vu to this, which is very psychological for me, which is in 1977 at a cocktail party, Sister Parrish turned to my father, who was at that point in the textile business with Alan Campbell. He was Alan Campbell, my godfather's partner in Alan Campbell, Inc. And she said, you should buy this company that used to be wonderful and no one remembers it now called Countin and Tout. Count and Tout at that point consisted of two old ladies in a trunk of rags, essentially, with I think less than$50 ,000 a year in sales, which is exactly what he paid for that company. My father walked down and bought it.

48:02Then people like Mario Boada and Mark Hampton and sister, very much wanting that resource to not go away, used all over the magazines and all over rooms for the Blair House, the White House, Brooke Astor's apartment. That was all count and tout. And it became a big part of the movement of whatever the 80s stood for aesthetically, along with companies like Pierre Deux. Remember Pierre Deux with the bags? Yes. Well, exactly. Please. My parent hallway is still papered in Pierre Deux. And so when I bought this and I thought I'm exactly the same age as when my father bought Catan and Tout, and the company is sort of in exactly the same state of eclipse, and it has exactly, hopefully, the same potential as what he did.

48:49I thought how funny that history repeats itself. Well, and wouldn't that be extraordinary? And we should say for listeners that obviously David is referring to his father, Eldonetto, who bought Catan and Tout, and that was a remarkable story, and so much was built from that. And I think you're absolutely right to make the connection. There's so much, there's so much possibility here. I mean, I'm not overstating the power of rugs to change the culture, the way, um, the way fabrics that can make a whole room can do. And in that case did, but, um, there's, it's certainly funny to find yourself buying companies.

49:25You don't know anything about how to run or what to do, but you know, that you, they can't be allowed to go away. First thing we had to do was put a floor under that, you know, triage it. And when he went to see the old ladies, Rose Tout and Eve Lazaro, they said, well, what makes you think you're qualified to buy this company and manage it? And he said, well, I don't have any qualifications to do that, but I know I do have good taste. And he did have good taste. And he seems to have passed that on to you. So you've got that leg up. The question is, I mean, in thinking about you, does this lead you closer to the dream of getting away from being in the service industry?

50:10Well, that's not a dream. I say it's a dream to be sort of funny. No, listen, it's every designer's dream. Are you kidding me, David? You are not alone here. Okay, you're saying that. I'm not saying that. I'm saying every designer I talk to tells me, listen, what side business can I create to get one day? It's true. Okay. So because it's simply smarter that when you have a mold and you make cakes in the mold, that can go on when you turn the lights out and gone home. Right. Whereas when you are a decorator, as much as we cherish that profession and the success that it's conferred upon me and the wonderful relationships with clients who are so wonderful that many of them are my friends, that is selling the hours you have in the day.

51:01You know, you're like a plumber or a dentist. Your name is on the door and you cannot build wealth equity in a business like that. And after, OK, so this is a funny bookend to what I just said and what you just said. But after my father did go and buy Count and Tout, as Sister Parrish's suggestion, I think 12 years later or something, he sold it to Colfax and Fowler, which was a very visible deal. And Sister Parrish buttonholed him at another cocktail party and said, will you tell that guy to buy my company too? And my father did tell David Green, the owner of Colfax and many other businesses at that point, that Sister Paris was interested.

51:47He said, well, please ask her what, in fact, would I be buying? And that's a funny story, but it's also the dilemma of when you're a designer. You can't sell anything but your name and your hours unless you have a product line. so maybe this is a step in the road to that but you know i'm not the world's greatest businessman but it there's a symbiosis here in that i needed these rugs to do the kind of rooms that i need to do to be the person who i must be design wise this couldn't be allowed to go away but if we also get a forecastable income stream out of it and we're not running around calling people up asking them to work harder to pass the co-op board faster so that we can get started on their apartment, that would be a relief.

52:34That's an upside too. Well, and I'm sorry that this comes at a time where we have to worry about tariffs as well. We're bringing in product from overseas. No, we don't. No, we don't. Okay. You figured that out already? Wait, here we go. Right. Because here's what I figured out. I'm worried about things I actually can control. When it's something I can't control because it's a chaos machine, I ignore it. And I never brought that word up in a negotiation. And I never mentioned it to the factory owner. I am sidestepping that whole thing because I happen to think I can't do anything about it. So I might as well not let it disrupt my plans.

53:16What I do think might have happened to the two other suitors for this company is that the tariff issues made them go away. Because it certainly has paralyzed American M &A momentum. And most people would either use it as a negotiating tactic to offer less in the climate of uncertainty or just walk away and fold their arms and wait and see what was going to happen at six months. So the tariffs may inadvertently have created the opportunity that led to me being able to buy Woodard. Maybe. I'm certainly I'm pretty sure I'm probably the only person who never brought it up. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is what turned off the other potential suitors who might have, in fact, originally thought it was coming from America just because of the look and feel and where.

54:00As I certainly did. As you certainly did. Yeah. Yeah. So what's your advice for me? Because you're smart and you've seen it all. What should I be careful of? What should I look for? What should I prioritize? Well, I think you build on that core base, that audience that already loves it. I think you go far and wide telling them, guess what? It's back and better than ever. And what else can I do for you? And I think with the great customers, you say, what else do you wish we had? What other extent, right? You want to get into that, reach all those top customers, get them on the phone. All those top customers, like what order did you almost place with that you didn't because we didn't have this or that?

54:43Communications. Yes. Outreach and communication. Absolutely. Well, one thing that Instagram has done organically for this project so far is lots of people are sending me their pictures of their wooded weave rugs. Love it. In their homes, in their staircases or whatever. And then saying this rug was discontinued, would you consider reviving this pattern? Or saying we love this, we want to replace this rug, it's getting a little threadbare. Can we get this one? And then I go into a meeting and say, have we discontinued this? When did we discontinue this? Do we still have the capacity to bring this back?

55:18And based on seeing the pictures, I think I'm going to launch an Instagram campaign that says, show me your Woodard, maybe, or something like that. Based on the pictures, you can see when something's a good idea. Because when you're looking at a small square tile in a catalog full of same size images, it actually is hard to see what something really looks like. No, no, no, absolutely. And also, as you talked about earlier, you've got this great archive. You know, you've got some things that, as you say, you might want to bring back. And then I think you just, you bring some other people in, let them look at these archives and say, oh, this could be this, this could be that.

55:53I mean, we know some of the people that would be great to see it. I'd love for Dara Caponegro to see the archive. I'd love for, right? and just imagine where it could go. And as I say, I think it is a beloved American brand that could go many places beyond just the stairs and the rug by the stairs that we've talked about. I'm so glad we agree. Yeah, I don't know. I'm excited about it, David. And we'll talk more about it. And I'm eager to help you in any way that I can, but I'm excited about - You already have, Dennis. I always feel better after talking to you.

56:38And we're back. We're getting to the end of the show here. But before we go, we'd like to take a second to highlight anything going on in the industry that might have caught our eye. Fred, what caught your eye? Wouldn't be a Thursday show if I didn't shout out Substack in some way. I thought you might. You knew it would be coming. there was just kind of a so the Substack for Scale which is one of my favorite design ones did a print edition you know in collaboration with Shelter and you know first of all just a general shout out to for Scale it's a great publication the print thing is a fun read there was a really funny little like you know it's mostly dedicated to like I guess you could call it cultural coverage or you know criticism and commentary but there was a great little kind of scoop buried in one of the interviews which is that Julio Torres do you know him Dennis yeah sure Yeah, he's an amazing comedian, really one of the best SNL writers and has his own great career, is collaborating with this company called Sabai, which is a cool Brooklyn-based furniture company.

57:32And I'm not sure either party wants that to be known, but it was in for scale. So we're going to mention it. I really cannot wait to see because Julio Torres is just such an interesting figure. Sabai is a cool company, and I'm really excited to see what that looks like later on in the year. But to bring it down a notch, I've been noticing recently AI deepfakes kind of showing up in our world. And I think the fear when they started to hit the market was that someone would start a diplomatic incident by making it seem like a country's leader said something incendiary. But I think what's proved to be the case is largely that when you see a political leader say something that they obviously didn't say, it's relatively easy to fact check that.

58:12So that hasn't come to pass. but what has happened is that like kind of on the smaller more cultural like niche figure level people put out these deep fakes and they get passed around a lot like i saw one recently where it was like jerry salt the art critic from new york magazine was deep faked into saying something weird and more recently anna winter was like deep faked into saying like why she didn't invite trump to the met gala which was a complete fabrication but several people i know shared it just because I think it was like, oh, it's a compelling idea for them. And so, you know, they didn't look too closely at it.

58:44And I don't know. You know, I think we're a ways off from people using it to, you know, put words in the mouth of, you know, Jamie Drake or anything. But I do think it's a reminder of, like, what a weird, you know, media timeline we're in. And also, you know, a reminder to be mindful of everything that you see and double-check because these are very convincing. When I first saw the Annie Wintour thing, I was like, oh, did she really say that? That's weird. Like, I believed it right off the bat. It wasn't until I kind of looked into it that I realized what was going on. The vigilance. Yes. Yes.

59:12You see an AI deepfake of me praising Ivory Boucle. No, it's a deepfake. We'll know for sure. What caught your eye this week, Dennis? A couple things that I wanted to shout out. One was a big hire from RH was announced. They're bringing back Lisa Chi, who used to work for them a few years back. She is coming back now as the co-chief merchandising and creative officer, as well as being made a president at the company. And it's both a big loss for our house, where RH poached her, because she had had quite an impact at our house. And it's also a big feather in RH's cap because there is the perception that RH is eager to continue to move the product higher and higher up that luxury mountain, Fred, which we haven't made reference to in a while.

1:00:06Yeah. So, I mean, I think this is an indication that the product is very much on their mind despite everything else that has been going on for them, the challenges that they've been facing. But this was a big announcement. And as I say, good for them and not so great for our house. So we'll have to see what shakes out there. I love that we have our own Hatfields and McCoys story in the home retail industry. Very much so. It's interesting. The other thing that caught my eye and I'm very excited about is one of my favorite people, favorite designer, favorite human, Bella Mancini is making her appearance on Caitlin's Trade Tales podcast this week.

1:00:49So I want everyone to go and listen to that because Bella is a smart, thoughtful, and just lovely person. So enjoy that. Yeah, Bella's great. Right? Absolutely. All right. That's all the time we have today. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to keep up with the latest news, browse job listings, or take a workshop, visit us online at businessofhome.com. If you want to get in touch with the show, write to us at podcast at businessofhome.com. This episode was produced by Fred Nikolaus and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend. We'll be off for Memorial Day holiday, but we'll be back with you on Thursday.