The Thursday Show: RH is betting big on traditional. Plus: Homes & Gardens has a new US magazine

21:03Fred Nicolaus:And, you know, maybe people just don't defend their IP aggressively enough. It was really striking. And you have to imagine, like, look, a lot of other furniture executives are listening to this call. And I think he knows that. So I sort of interpreted this as like a warning shot across the bow. You know, do not do not knock us off on estates. We will come after you. I don't know if that was your takeaway as well on the IP front, but it was interesting. Oh, absolutely. And I think part of that is he almost feels paternal about this line. Like, like these are my these are my kids. Leave them the heck alone.

21:32So I think that's why he took such a strong tone with the IP issue.

21:36Fred Nicolaus:Yeah, well, I mean, RH and knockoffs is always a contentious issue. There's a lot to say there. But, you know, I will, you know, look forward in my nosy journalistic way to covering any lawsuits that come out of this. But it was very clear that there may be some to look at. So, yeah, all in all, always an interesting call. And if you want, turn into our bonus podcast where we just talk about RH for three hours. It has two listeners and it's me and Dennis. Anyway, good times. Moving on, we're going to talk about tariffs because, of course, that's our other show, Tariff Talk. It's been several months now since the tariff refund started rolling in, which raises an important question.

22:13How should home brands spend the money? And what do we know?

22:17Fred Nicolaus:Podcast advertising is how they should spend that money. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. You know, there's because a lot of home brands that get these refunds are publicly traded. I don't know if they're required, but they do say on their earnings call what they're spending the money on. We talked about this with Williams-Sonoma. It's giving some of it back to its vendors and giving some of it to employees. RH talked about how they're using it to offset rises in fuel costs. So we have a little bit of a limited window into where the tariff money is going. But there's a vast amount of tariff money that's going back to privately held companies.

22:47Fred Nicolaus:Most companies in our world are privately held. So we don't know exactly how much they got and we don't know what they're spending it on. And it's apparently becoming sort of a contentious issue. There was this letter in this other publication called Home News Now, where the publisher wrote about, you know, let's all calm down, cool it down. Because I think what's been happening behind closed doors is that importers are seeing, you know, a 10, 20 million dollar refund from the United States government. And all the retailers that they sell to are going like, well, hey, like we took a hit, too. You want to kind of slide that money down the supply chain a little bit?

23:19Fred Nicolaus:And it's turning into kind of a heated conversation behind closed doors. It was an interesting letter. It was an interesting letter, and it was clearly born out of, as you suggest, a lot of communication behind the scenes with people wondering, hey, where's my refund in all of this? Yeah. And and I get it. And, you know, I think Laura Albert at Williams-Sonoma made such a point of speaking about it, as you referenced on the call to say, hey, there were clearly some key vendors who got us through this time and we gave some of this money back to them because they helped us hold the line as much as we could.

23:56I think that's a lot harder to do with a whole bevy of retail partners. And I get the hesitation around even trying to take the time to figure all of that out. And at the same time, I don't think anybody feels as though we've gotten the all clear, as if this is the end of the tariff situation, right? And that's the other component of this. So, yes, we've seen huge amounts of money in some cases come back to companies, but there's nothing to suggest that it's not about to just turn around and walk right back out the door because the tariff wars are not over.

24:35Fred Nicolaus:They're not. Yeah. And it just puts companies who got a tariff refund in an awkward position. Now, obviously, you know, having$20 million in the bank is an awkward position I'd love to be in, but I, but it is, it is a complicated situation, right? Because like on the one hand, you can just say, well, we're holding onto it for a later date or offsetting some of our other costs, which is understandable. But then you have all your partners kind of beating on the door going like, Hey, what about us? But then the problem is if you try and give it away, it becomes almost even more complicated because it's how do you correctly proportionate to all the people that you work with?

25:04Fred Nicolaus:Do you pass it on to retailers? Do you pass it on to designers? Do designers then have to pass it on to their clients? you know it it gets really really complicated it kind of reminds me of that old maxim about like you know the problem with hosting a party is who you don't invite you know it's like people are maybe trying to be benevolent around this this windfall but you know giving the money away in some ways raises more questions than just keeping it themselves so you know i don't know if we're ever going to know the full extent of what this debate looks like it's happening mostly you know in emails and dms and i only kind of catch catch wind of it here and there but it's certainly a heated topic.

25:35Fred Nicolaus:And I think that it's a weird unintended consequence of getting this money back is that it causes as many problems as it did to give it out in the first place. I don't know. It's an interesting issue. It is an interesting issue. And it's striking when you drill down below these numbers, what some of the earnings reports would have looked like from some of these home companies if they hadn't gotten these big refunds. And so we would be having a very different conversation because I suspect that the shares of many of these companies would be far lower than they are now. And they're not doing so well to begin with.

26:11But I think that many of them would be even lower had they had to come out with the real numbers without the windfall from the tariff refunds. So I think many of the companies were sort of breathing a sigh of relief, hoping that people quickly move on and don't look at those numbers too closely. And they have to figure out what they can do for the next quarter to come up with some big numbers. So we'll see. and not typically the strongest quarter for furniture sales around the holidays. So we'll have to see what happens in the future. But clearly a lot of behind-the-scenes conversations going on, and some of them sound like they're getting a little heated.

26:46Another subject that gets people heated, Fred, is AI. But this one's not going to be bad, right?

26:51Fred Nicolaus:It's time for my Venn diagram here. For the Wall Street Journal last week, Catherine Bindley wrote about why the newest class of tech millionaires are veering towards more practical purchases. Now, we've talked about this before, but as we all know, Anthropic, the big AI company, is planning on going public in the not-too-distant future. It's going to mint a lot of millionaires, maybe even a few billionaires. Open AI, the maker of ChatGPT, is planning to do a public offering at some point, probably next year. So there's going to be a lot of new millionaires walking around San Francisco, and there's a lot of energy spent around, well, what are they going to spend the money on?

27:23Fred Nicolaus:Are they going to renovate their homes? Are they going to buy new homes? Are they going to buy espresso makers? Where's all this money going to go? And the Wall Street Journal did a good job of kind of digging deep into that. And I will say for designers, the takeaway was not super positive. I don't know if this is, I don't know if they're planning to spend this all on ivory boot clay, but what do you think? Designers, if you can start marketing espresso machines, I think you'll do very well with this crowd. I think this is one of those situations where designers are just going to have to figure out how to befriend these people, get in the door, and somehow convince them that they need great design.

28:02Because so far, it seems like a lot of the money is going towards wellness, cold plunges, and things that keep them awake at all hours of the night.

28:11Fred Nicolaus:Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think like that's the, you know, enthusiastic thing to take away or the positive thing to take away for our industry is that there is this focus on wellness. That's a bigger topic in the industry. I think people were already pivoting towards that in general. But, you know, this consumer base definitely seems very interested in it. So if you can deliver on that, great. Harder to deliver on the other big purchase they're making, which is customized computer chips and development boards. I don't know if Schumacher makes a customized computer chip. But in all sincerity, like it is a really interesting, weird problem.

28:40Fred Nicolaus:And we've talked about this on the show before, but I've always been interested in the fact that in Silicon Valley, there's just so much money and so much power, which would ideally be like a center for designers to go and make money themselves. But it feels like, you know, the psychology of the tech elite has never been totally clear to me. It's not always clear exactly what they want out of interior design. And there's not as much of an established, OK, well, you get to a certain level of wealth. You hire a designer like there maybe is in New York. So it's always been a puzzle. But I think this is a puzzle within a puzzle because some of these people who work at these AI companies like don't believe the world will exist in five years.

29:13Fred Nicolaus:So how do you convince them that they need to, you know, invest in a sofa that's going to last 10 years when they're thinking it's, you know, the robot overlords are coming for all of us. It's a puzzle. What do you do when you're building what might be the reason the world comes to an end? And yeah. What do you want in fabric? And it's paying me a fortune. But also I do see the end is near. And so should I spend all that money on that? I mean, what's interesting is clearly they are buying homes. And it was fascinating to see all of the reports showing how much home prices have appreciated in San Francisco.

29:48I think there was a report out that said around 30 percent of home purchases in San Francisco between April and June, according to Redfin, were all cash purchases. there is just a lot of money sloshing around. And I think as the article points out, many of these people don't even know what really to do with the money. But if they're not thinking longer term at the moment, how do we get them to think that way? And how do we get them to want nice homes and to invest? And I think it's the same kind of challenge that we've always talked about with the next generation coming along. Only this time, to your point, many of the people that are coming into a lot of money just have a very different worldview, at least perhaps at the moment.

30:33Fred Nicolaus:Yeah, this is going to send me back to listen to your conversation with Ken Falk and Dan Fink, you know, designers who have done really well in California because I do think they think a little bit differently and it's worth, you know, reinvestigating those conversations. I think, you know, underlying all of this, like, I don't think the world is going to end in a few years. I think these people will need homes that they're happy in. And I think designers will come through, but it's just it's a strange moment at the moment. So, you know, again, if you can find a way to add a markup to a development board, whatever that is, you'll be in good shape in San Francisco at the moment.

31:07Well, and I think also the conversations about making yourself discoverable to Claude. I think that that seems to also be a big, big part of this. And I think that that is something we'll probably be talking about a lot more because Anthropic is at the center of a lot of this new wealth creation. So I think we'll all be talking to Claude a lot more, and perhaps he will be one of our new overlords in the future. We'll see. All right, that's it for the news, but there's plenty more to check out on businessofhome.com, including October's Can't Miss Design events and the rise of anonymous design accounts.

31:43We'll be back in a minute, but first, a quick break.

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32:33Considered one of High Point's must-see showrooms, Chelsea House brings together inspired interiors, distinctive new introductions, and a point of view that always offers something fresh. Beautiful, sophisticated, and full of those unexpected details that make a designer stop and look twice. This October, make Chelsea House your first stop. Find the showroom at 200 North Hamilton Street in the Hamilton Wren Design District. Come see what's new and leave inspired.

33:10And we're back. I'm joined now by the group editor-in-chief of Homes and Gardens, who's got a new publication she's coming out with, which we're going to talk about. Sarah Spateri, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much, Dennis. I'm delighted to be here. Well, I'm thrilled to have you. And on the eve of this big launch, you and I are sitting down for a conversation. I can't wait to hear why now, what led to all of this, the behind the scenes, the drama. Tell me. Yeah, well, Anthology is really, it's part of a bigger Homes and Gardens US story. It's a continuation of what we've been working on.

33:48So the website established the audience sort of proved to us that there was this appetite for Homes and Gardens in the US. You know, we obviously have such a sort of well-established, well-loved British brand. And so we noticed as we grew the website, this sort of traction in the US and this sort of appetite for what we were doing in the American market. So the website sort of established the audience, but Anthology looks to sort of deepen the relationship quite specifically with the American design community. So another incredibly important part of us for Anthology is that it has an opinion. So we've tried to make sure it's not simply sort of a parade of beautiful houses.

34:26We have ideas, we have arguments, we have humor, we have taste, we have people saying what they really think. And that is one of the kind of things I think is exciting about it, that we kind of have allowed people to have a point of view. And that's sort of different to, I think, what you get often with the homogenized media via sort of whether that's social platforms or other platforms. Well, that's actually what I'm most interested in. And it's hard to really get people to weigh in on a strong opinion or take the chance of putting themselves out there. Yeah, you have to get drunk. Well, is that your process?

35:07That's my question. How did you do it? Turns out we took them down to the pub and we just got them drunk. And maybe that is the way. And, you know, I think, you know, as we go through this process, I'm hoping that every issue is more confident and more able to do that than the next. But I think actually we found people were very ready to share their opinion, as long as it was sort of very much positioned as an opinion. You know, we have five points of view written by some great. So the theme of issue one is actually very much this transatlantic exchange. So we got five great designers, including Ben Pentreth, Lily Little, Nina Campbell, Kate Stamps, Catherine Ireland, to just write a really strong opinion on a topic.

35:49So Ben really speaks out about his opinions on, you know, British and American architecture. Nina celebrates. I think her headline for Nina's piece is, The English Say Why, Americans Say Why Not? Which is just the nicest, which sums up the whole kind of actually like, we're cynics. Americans are like joyful embraces. So, and each of those pieces, because the author designer is writing about something that's so close to their heart, they're able to be very opinionated. And likewise, Michael Diaz Griffith's written a very opinionated piece about antiques, as you can imagine. And it's fun and it's funny and it's, yeah, but it's, it's so great to give like the space for that.

36:29And it's filled, it's indulgent. You know, we would, you know, as a, somebody who also creates monthlies where we are spaceports, lots of captions. It's, you know, really, we're trying to be as useful as we can to the reader. With anthology, we're just much more indulgent. We're much more able to create something that people keep rather than consume. Well, it also sounds like it's very much something that people read versus simply look at and flip through the pages. I mean, don't get me wrong. There are some lovely visual features in there. S.J. Axelby has painted some amazing original paintings of some rooms that she's imagined from literature.

37:09So rooms from Howard's End and rooms from The Great Gatsby and Jane Eyre. She's imagined what these rooms would look like from passages of the text and painted them. So, I mean, there's obviously there's visual feasts, but yes, there's also hopefully things to read. And we're lucky because since we did the first issue, we have had wonderful Ben Reinhardt join our team. So Ben joined in August, and I know that he's a friend of you, and it's just a delight to have. A friend of the industry. The great Ben Reinhardt is everyone's friend, and we're super excited for him. And, I mean, the guy's a traveling fool.

37:47He's never in the same place for more than a couple of days, so, I mean, it just made sense that he couldn't be tied down to just being here in the States. But tell me what his role is. So he's a US editor for Homes and Gardens. So whilst he will absolutely be all over anthology, there's two things to say on that. We don't want anthology to have a single named editor. The point of anthology is that it's a collective. We want it to be about sharing stories and about viewpoints and this lovely melting pot of culture, British and American, but also voices and viewpoints and the lens to have that layering that I think makes it kind of exciting.

38:24And so he is absolutely very much a lead, along with David Nichols, the brilliant David Nichols and me on shaping anthology. So he's absolutely part of that. But equally with Ben, I want to get his wonderful point of view, U.S. insight across the rest of the Homes and Gardens brand, particularly social and digital. We sort of evolved that and leveled that up. I'm excited to have his sparkle kind of move from Anthology, but also kind of cross into our other platforms as well. So he's going to be a busy guy. Well, and that's great because he's so talented and he has so much to offer. So I'm thrilled.

39:06And tell me more, because, of course, Americans love when people talk about Americans. And so thinking about anthology being a British magazine, but that's focusing somewhat on the States more, tell me what the thinking was there and what that mix ends up really looking like. For me, the British-US conversation has never been more alive than it is right now. There's a huge appetite, as far as I can see, in the US for that British decorating, craft, pattern, antiques, and a kind of slightly looser, I guess, way of putting rooms together. But at the same time, British designers are looking to America for scale, for confidence, for color, for that, why not, for that sense of ease, for comfort.

39:52And I really think that influence is going both ways. so it just feels like a really exciting cultural closeness and like we share a language in so many ways well we share a literal language and a visual language but I think homes are different and I think exploring that offers a very like rich editorial territory and I think you know we want to retain our British eccentric British background that should be the lens and the eye that we bring. But for anthology, we absolutely want it to feel relevant to the US community. I mean, maybe it will be global. Maybe English people will love it too. Maybe Australians will love it.

40:32But when we're planning the editorial, the audience that we're visualizing, as you do as editorial people, is an American audience. And is it a designer audience? Is it a design enthusiast audience? What do you think about when you think about who's coming? think about a designer audience so i think you know with captioning and you know all the sort we want the copy to be the sort of things that you'd share with your in you know as it from at an industry level so it we you know we assume a level of investment within i think i think i don't want to exclude design enthusiasts from that but this is definitely not for the sort of passionate homemaker it's for the sort of design enthusiast decorator as opposed to somebody who just wants to have a beautiful home which is very much what homes and gardens is homes and gardens that are monthly is, you know, much more embracing of that broader consumer space.

41:21Right. And remind people a little bit about Homes and Gardens. And as you've referenced, you got these indications, particularly online, that a lot of people in America were interested and that was a lot of who was consuming the content. So remind people about that. Obviously, Homes and Gardens launched in 1919 for one of the first home interest magazines. and you know we did that for a lovely long time and we didn't launch website till pretty late in the day honestly so it was 2019 on our 100th birthday that we launched a proper website which is actually sort of ridiculous but true anyway very quickly we grew really quickly went through you know excellent digital craft seo etc and we noticed that that growth was largely in the u.s so So, you know, we got to sort of depending on the month between 10 million and 17 million users.

42:12And that was a 70 % US audience, which absolutely gained traction in the US, which was incredibly exciting and, you know, not unstrategic because I think, you know, we're owned by a global company. Future has global visions. And obviously, in terms of scale, we've not got much opportunity here in the UK, tiny island. So clearly, it's helpful. But so it wasn't unstrategic. We absolutely knew that that was something we wanted to do, but we didn't expect it to be quite as impactful so quickly in the US. So incredibly exciting. And we thought we'd lean in. Yeah. Well, and so was that a challenging conversation with whoever you had to go to, to get a budget, I'm assuming for, hey, we've got this great idea.

42:58We want to do this biannual, big old print, heavy, glossy, big thing. Crazy. Yeah, I mean, is it a crazy idea? Yes. Because who's launching into the US market right now? A massive, beautiful, glossy, large format biannual. But is it an easy conversation to have? Yes. Because I think, you know, we know from a commercial point of view that actually print remains incredibly strong in this market. And actually, we know that we needed to show up for our US audience in a more concrete and premium way. And I think print is such a, you know, can be something that's so, you know, it's not always, but we, you know, when you invest in it in the right way, it can be something that's so luxurious.

43:47And, you know, we put a pretty robust business case together. And so it wasn't a difficult conversation to have once the numbers were there, but really it's a, there's something a little crazy about it. Well, it's, it, I mean, it's interesting because a lot of publications are coming along and, and finding traction. And, and we often talk about Frederick and others that have, that have found an audience and this, this hunger and this, and this love of print, particularly in the design space. But, but lots of other competitors are dipping their toes in And so it doesn't seem misguided or crazy.

44:29It's just funny, this this. AI driven time that we're that we're in leaning into into print magazines just seems going against the trend. But I mean, I work for a great big media company and we're trying to figure out, do we need to bring some of these titles back to to print ourselves? You know, Business of Home has a print magazine and a lot of people love it. And a lot of people just know Business of Home for the print magazine. They don't even know we'd do a podcast. Can you imagine that, Sarah? They don't even know we'd have a website. I mean, but that's the thing. I mean, so like some people, like that's what they want.

45:05Yeah, there's two things in there. I think you mentioned that like the hand, like the maker and the hand. I think we're looking for things that show the craft. But I think also with a biannual, it's more than a print magazine. It's like a brand flag. It's something that you do. And it would have been a different conversation if we were trying to enter the monthly magazine market and try to create something that needed scale. The thing about anthology, this is not about the volume of the readership. It's about the right readership. And it's about reaching the people who are the decision makers.

45:39And it's about ensuring that you're in the conversation. And, you know, success for us isn't only people wanting to buy and read the magazine. It's people wanting to be in it, people wanting to be part of it, people wanting to share a story with us and join our conversation, share their opinion. So that for us, I think, is the exciting thing. But, you know, after you reach a certain scale, it doesn't matter how many people buy it. But actually what matters is it creates this ecosystem of creativity that we all are excited about and are nourished by and hopefully then translates to advertising revenue.

46:16Right, because it needs to pay for itself and it needs to make money. And exactly. Coming back to the sort of economics of it, and I'm struck by how many British design-related firms that I speak to that are very keen to come over to the US. And part of it, obviously, the British market has been challenging for a while now, right? It's been soft. Yeah, I think the British market has been soft now, you know, obviously for a whole host of political reasons. It's not our, we're not in our heyday, let's say. So I think the US, obviously, it's a very timely thing. But I also, you know, there is such scale, such creativity, such flair.

46:57And I think, you know, as with London, but you know, so many cities in the US are springboards for other global projects too. So I think actually, you know, there is an absolute recognition of how important American decoration is now. And I think that so, you know, and I love the way that that's two way, that we're so passionate about coming to the US, British brands, but also the growth in interest in the Pimlico Road. and our recently launched, we talked about before, but Wow House, obviously fairly new, but so much American interest, not least because, you know, of your fun adventures with your dog, but so much American interest and, you know, appreciation and support for what we're doing here as well.

47:43And I think, you know, what Claire German and Jim Druckmann together do with those two design centres have brought kind of two cultures closer together. And it seems like a great thing. Yeah, no, I agree. And I mean, and kudos to Claire German and all that the Chelsea Harbor Design Center does. I know there's a whole range of focus-related events going on. Yeah, unfortunately on the same day as our launch, which feels like I feel so, you know, disloyal not being there and supporting in London. No, I don't know. I get it. And Wow House just gets better every year. And it's been so fun to see a growing number of brands and designers participate in that.

48:24And I know that Yang Ha participated in Wow House this year and is a contributor to Anthology. She is. She's one of our absolute, I think she's an incredible designer. Her room at Wow, which she did with Benjamin Moore, was so colourful and joyful and absolutely a breath of fresh air and energy. And I think probably the most appreciated one, certainly in all the media here. But Young does a really, we have a fun feature called design pairing in the issue, which is a kind of play on wine pairing. So we asked some of our favorite designers to put together pieces. So a kind of not quite contemporary piece with a antique and a fabric.

49:07So Young has done one of her combinations. She's done a lovely bedroom for us. So look out for that in volume one. Well, I look forward to seeing that. And luckily, I won't have to wait too much longer. But to your point about people eager to participate. So round one, how did the outreach of asking people to participate and letting people know about it? And to the earlier point, is it an opportunity to have people's projects in here as well as perspectives and writing? And let's talk about that mix a little bit, because I'm sure once people see it, they're going to want to know, hey, Sarah, how can I be in this cool new publication that you've got?

49:46I hope so. So from a houses point of view, volume one, houses were mostly pitched to us by brilliant publicists, essentially. You know, we were lucky enough to have had great conversations. I've come to the US, I think, four times this year and, you know, have a really great network of publicists who pitched us great houses, combined with, you know, great work with other photographers and things. I think we're very keen that our houses are exclusive to anthologies. anthology so we're not looking so we are looking for images for projects that haven't been elsewhere already yeah and um we are keen for what we didn't do for issue one is shoot any houses or i do shoot original photography for any houses now looking ahead to issue two we would love to do that we would love to bring our bring our photographic aesthetic to houses that we didn't have time for with issue one so any projects for shooting would also be a huge draw for us when it comes to points of you you know we david and i sat um in a room and came up with fun ideas and then asked people to be part of it but going forward obviously i hopefully that will be a mix of people coming up with ideas for us and you know i think it felt a little bit like a startup with issue one you know when you're sort of just getting it out of the door and you're kind of working on a google spreadsheet and you don't even know what your flat plan is and and you're just trying it and giving it a go and you know i think the key with anthology and the origin of the name is that we wanted it to have this sort of backbone of storytelling and it be to be very much about sharing stories and different voices.

51:17And I think that is the beating heart of it. We're nothing without the viewpoints and the contributions from great designers. That is absolutely what we want to hear. And so success for me anyway, as the editorial person is a lot of that. Clearly success is also that anthology exists outside of our two by print moments and becomes the sort of obviously always on content you know have social we want to have digital content albeit slightly different to what we'd run on homes and gardens that are a bit more lengthy and frankly a bit more sub-stacky a bit more kind of personality driven in that way but also you know I would love to work with more brands and you know work to tell their stories and you know bring together people and bring an editorial viewpoint to product launches and all that kind of thing.

52:11So clearly, you know, if those two things happen, we'll be very happy people. So where will people be able to find Anthology? Well, great question. So they will be available in independent bookshops. It will be available in Barnes & Noble's. It will be available on Amazon in the US and the UK. And subscriptions will be available through a company called Magazines Direct. And will it be a separate subscription or is it part of the same? um okay so yeah it's just for anthology and it's a great subscription deal so i recommend subscribing over single issues and and you're and you're targeting the next issue so this one is is just going to be dropping and then the next one will be march so the next one we are hoping to launch um in charleston so i'm hoping to see if there's a way we can be part of the charleston design okay um it feels i mean i actually truthfully haven't been to charleston so slightly navigating the unknown but we everybody there seems such a buzz around Charleston by design I like the heritage um sort of the alignment in sort of this kind of heritage narrative so yeah watch the space but I think we're hoping to launch issue two um which will be themed icons which is very much about us exploring what makes an icon what is an icon why does some things endure Why do some things not endure?

53:34What are the forgotten icons? What are our icons icons? We also thought we could do like the family tree of icons. So if you're looking at products and like iconic products, actually, there's like, you know, that you could trace probably a family tree of product icons of everything really just coming, every idea coming from the previous idea. Well, I mean, I'm hoping for the best. I'm excited that you're the next time I see you, you'll be here in the States and we'll We'll be celebrating the launch of Anthology. So congratulations on that. I can't wait to see it and get my hands on it. And I'm sure everybody listening to this feels the very same way.

54:12So Sarah, thank you so much for talking with me. Thank you so much, Dennis. I love chatting with you. It's always a joy.

54:25And 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. Brad, what caught your eye?

54:33Fred Nicolaus:The Dump caught my eye, Dennis. It's actually a former podcast guest we had. I think one of the leaders of The Dump on the show a while back. They were behind the resale of all the liquidated Mitchell Gold Bob Williams furniture, if you remember that whole drama. But it's kind of a really smart chain setup that sells furniture liquidation out of these big stores. And I always thought it was a very interesting and creative business, but we just got the news that they're shuttering a lot of their locations. There's still a going concern, but it seems like there's something going on over there. So I'll have to do a little more reporting.

55:04Fred Nicolaus:But it's definitely interesting, because I always thought, well, if anyone's poised to do well in the down market, it's people selling cheap liquidated furniture, but they seem to be having some problems. So an interesting story, if not exactly a positive one. Yeah, I'm really eager to hear what you learn. And I really enjoyed my conversation with them and really appreciated the mother-daughter team and their business model. It sounded like it was a really fun business. So I'm wondering what the hiccup is that was created. I don't know what it is exactly, but I hope to learn more, and I'm sorry if they're going through a rough time.

55:38Fred Nicolaus:Yeah, well, hopefully we'll find out more. What country are this week, Dennis? A couple of things. Yesterday, Laura Bindloss, who runs a PR and consulting firm called Nylon here in New York, and New York and London, that's what actually Nylon stands for, New York and London, but she actually brought together in a very interesting way a group of her clients. Some were designers, some were trade brands, and had a bunch of conversations about AI and media and design. And I was on one of the panels talking about podcasts today, obviously, and talking about sort of media in general. The founder of Business of Home, Julian Oran Johnston, was on a panel talking also about AI and digital search these days.

56:25And it was a really interesting conversation. And obviously, we did talk a lot about Claude and one of the designers who was there, who is actually working with an employee of Anthropic and talked about how just everything does get run through Claude. So I can tell them what to do, but they absolutely second guess everything I do by running it through that. But it was interesting. And well done, Laura Binlos, for putting that together. I think people got a lot out of it. The other thing that caught my eye was former guest of the show Sarah Sherman Samuel opened up her gallery in Michigan. We had her on the show not too long ago, and she was talking about how this was under construction.

57:06She's been doing a lot of art pieces and a lot of fun furniture things as well. And I'm glad that she finally got it open. She's got an exhibition that's running through October, and I hope to get down to Grand Rapids and see it. But I wish her great success. She's one of my favorites. Triple S. Love it. Absolutely. Good luck to her with all of that. 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.

57:42This episode was produced by Fred Nikolaus and Caroline Burke and edited by Michael Castaneda. I'm Dennis Scully. Have a great weekend, and we'll be back with you on Monday.