From Loom To Luxury: Inside Eastern Accents with Louise Traficanti

This is iDesignLab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design. Curator of interiors, furnishings and lifestyles. Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott. iDesignLab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution and style and trends. Today on iDesignLab, we're joined by Louise Traficanti, creative director at Eastern Accents. With over 30 years in luxury textiles and roots at Dublin's National College of Art and Design, Louise blends craftsmanship, global sourcing and storytelling, shaping how fabric transforms the way we experience home. Welcome to the iDesignLab podcast. Today we are joined in studio with Louise Traficanti, I hope I said that right, who is a very creative, intelligent, well-traveled source of information in the textile industry. So excited to dive into this conversation. She is a huge driving force to the evolution and growth of Eastern Accents, which is such a unique company that we're going to get to talk about today. And I would say the creative director behind Pandora's Manor, which is a very special place in High Point that we've been fortunate enough to. Wonderful, wonderful place. So cool. So welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So we want to hear everything, but let's start at the very beginning. So you come from Dublin. Yes. So I'm Irish. I was born there, went to college in Dublin, studied textiles at the National College of Art and Design. And when I was in college, it was the 1990s in Ireland, things were pretty depressed. The job environment was not good. And most young Irish people, most graduates emigrated. So I realized that's probably on the cards for me too. And I thought, well, I'll just go to England. I'll go to Europe or whatever. Yeah. Anyway, at the time, newspapers were actually irrelevant things. So the newspaper, imagine that the newspaper had a little like little article saying, New batch of Morrison visas, green cards are coming out. And Ireland is always allocated kind of a high number of these Morrison visas or green cards. What you do is you just send on a white sheet of paper, name, address, whatever to some place in Nebraska. Nebraska. Yes. Which I thought was weird. That stuck with me too. You send it off to Nebraska. People just get picked randomly. And like a lottery. It was a lottery system. And that's basically how I got my green card. And then when I got it, I was like, well, I guess this is where I need to go. This is my destiny or my fate. I'm meant to go to the U.S. So you pass, you do some tests, you pass a physical because obviously they want to make sure you're healthy and everything. And that's what happened. That's kind of like when people came to Ellis Island in the early 19- late-19-19. Yes. They had to do the physical and so forth. Yes. So they're still doing that. Still doing it. Like if you have a TB or something, you're not allowed in. Right. I mean, it's that antiquated too. Because I don't really know too many people that have TB in the U.S. So your first step into the United States, where did you land originally? So this is crazy. I went to Chicago at first because it was actually, this was, I got at my third year of college. So I had, I came for a summer to work. And the only people I knew in the country were in Chicago and it was relatives of my dad. So it was a relative. So it was at least somebody I could physically touch base with. Came over, stayed with them. And then I went and moved into Chicago. I found an apartment that I sublet. I found a student that from DePaul who didn't need their place for the summer and I just rented it for the summer. I got a $5 bike at a garage sale. So resourceful. Yes. And I rode around the streets of Chicago on my bicycle. And that was how I got to learn the streets, which helped, obviously. And I worked there and I liked it. And I liked Midwesterners, of course. So what did you start working was like your first job? First job, summer job. I was working at Creighton Barrel. And at the time it was on Michigan Avenue. Yeah. That was like the height of the Oprah time. It was huge. It was such a good vibe. It really was. And it was such a lovely city to be in. And it's a great city in the summer. Yeah. Beautiful beach. It's beautiful architecture. It's so clean. It's such a lovely place. So I really, I loved it. So you felt like you... So working at Creighton Barrel, what? Retail? Yeah. Working in the store? Working retail, working in the store. And you went to college for... Textile design. I know. And that's what just blows my mind when I hear yours, like read through your original story. I mean, for you to connect to Eastern accents from being a textile major in Dublin, Ireland. It's truly... That's like hitting the lottery. For them and you. So I guess I hit the lottery twice. I got the green card. Right. And then in my job, yes, it's very... It was really unusual. It's really a kismet. Nobody thinks you're going to find somebody that does works and textiles in Chicago. Right. And really, that's more of a Southern thing. You think, okay, Southeast where mills are, things like that. And... I kind of think of it as like out of the country. Even the name of the country, Eastern accents, you think... Yes. Somewhere... You think the company is a foreign company. Correct. You don't realize it's a domestic manufacturer. Yeah. Which I love about Eastern accents. They are a domestic manufacturer. It's made in the USA. I think that's just so spectacular. So obviously Eastern accents has been a huge part of your life here in the United States and in general. So how did that come about? So I did work in a lot of different things. One of the things I did, I worked in like production doing set design. Oh, gorgeous. I worked in design for a little bit, which was interesting. I did work, and this is another unusual thing, but I worked for a very small boutique weaving company that was in the West Loop in Chicago. And we would weave beautiful fabrics, was all hand-woven for a poultry, really, really nice. And then I was doing like random three to four jobs just sort of floating around. And that's when I started, when I applied for the job at Eastern accents. And I thought, this is strange, but they work with textiles. They ask, you know, Thurston design. Were you familiar with them at all? I had no idea. This was sort of pre-internet too. Because I started working with Eastern accents in 1999. And the web really wasn't around, so it was very hard to research companies. You didn't know what you were getting into. I did not know what I was getting into. As established as they are today? No. How many employees then? Probably about maybe 80, 100. Okay, it's still a big company. Still a big company, and it was in a very unusual, it was in the Northwest side of the city. And it was all a building that was not made for manufacturing, so it was very broken and disjointed. So when I did go in for my interview and I'm walking around looking at everything, and I'm like, this is very strange. Like, what are they doing here? And upstairs was this sewing room, and it was all old floorboards and just the noise of the machines could almost feel the floor. Vibrating. Yes. But it was just a very unique environment. It was really unusual. I didn't know what I walked into, and I met the owners of the company, and I had the strangest interview of my life. I was like, I don't really know. And they're looking at my portfolio, and we're talking, and the owners of the company, their husband and wife team. Husband is Turkish, and his wife is Swedish. And I'm just sitting there a little confused trying to figure out everything. Sum it all up. Sum it all up. And then after I came out of the interview, I called my then, my now husband, then boyfriend. I said, I think I just accepted the job, but I'm not too sure. I don't really know what happened. So you're wondering an interview, and at the same time as the interview, they offer you the job. For me, the job. Which is unusual, because normally they call back or they have to decide or most companies. Yes. And I think that's, Eastern accents is always very decisive. There's not much hamming and hawing. Like usually they know, and I love that confidence, that mindset. Yes. And I think too, what I've learned as well from working there is it's more of a personal fit and a character fit, finding the right people that fit into that environment and that mindset as opposed to what your set skills are. So when you see the person or meet the person and you get the energy, then you're like, you know what? I think you're going to fit in just fine. And that's usually how it works in the company. So what was your initial role there? So the original designer of the company was pregnant and she was going to be going on maternity leave. So they wanted me to be her assistant, fill in and cover for her when she was gone. And when you say designer, was she picking the fabrics, curating the layers? Yes. She was picking the fabrics, curating everything, putting the bed sets together. She really was executing the vision of the company. And then sales and marketing and everything would look at the collections. They'd be launched at High Point. And that was sort of her role. And she would work with production. For people who are listening and watching this, who aren't familiar with Eastern Access, tell us a little about what they make and what the company does. So it's a very, very interesting company. It's in Chicago. It's in Albany Park. And we make luxury pillows, bedding sheets. We make headboards, draperies. Anything with fabric, really, we make. We manufacture, we cut and sew. We design in Chicago. And it's a very, it's a really unusual place. It's got a great energy to it. And we have people that speak all languages, come from all parts of the world. I call it kind of like a little United Nations of manufacturing. And everybody just, you know, really gets along. It's a very unique environment. So it's a line of products that most people probably don't really think about. Or come up, you know, on top of mine and so forth, especially in interior decorating. But the products are pretty much used by every single person there is on a daily basis. Yes. That you don't really take it and ever think about it. Everyone goes to bed every night. Everyone's laying down in a bed. Yeah. And they're probably laying on your products. Could be. That they're doing a great night's sleep with. Yes. And so what we do, we grew organically and everything happens sort of very organically where customers just like our product, like dealing with us, like our business, like that we ship on time, the quality. And then usually they would ask and say, Hey, did you guys ever think of doing this? Because we are looking for a good source for this and we can't find one. And we never say no. We always try. So we always say, Yes, we're going to figure it out. And we do that. We figure it out. Well, that's the beauty of having a thing. You know, team in house that you really and get to domestic manufacturing. You just go right there and say, I want you to cut this and can you do this? And it's all right there. Everything under the same roof. Yes. Like we've done the impossible. I've seen jobs turned around in times that should never have happened. We've made a custom fitted sheets for airline seats that recline and done that re-embroider the number of the airplane onto it so that people know which jet it is staying in everything. We do a lot of customization. So we're very skilled artisans in sewing and cutting. And it's really hard to find that anymore. And most of that work is done overseas. Very few places do it domestically. So we're really, I call us a dinosaur because we really are. So you're running the entire business even from photography and all the creative. It's all done in house. But the fabrics, they're coming from, because from what I understand, you travel extensively. Yes. The fabrics come from everywhere. We buy from mills all over the world. So we buy from Europe. We'll buy from Turkey. We buy from China. We buy our embroidery from India. So we literally, we everywhere. And we buy domestically too, but that's even drying up and mills are disappearing here. Which is awesome. Which is really sad. And the problem is you can't start that up again. Who's going to say, I want to win a mill. You can't do that. Even with manufacturing, it's the same thing. Who's going to say, I want to open up a factory. Try finding people that can actually have the skills to work there. So in traveling through all of these mills and so forth, have you ever had times where you run across a product or a new fabric just going, oh my God, look at this. Yes. So that's what you live for. It is. Because I hear everyone here in our office when Scalamandra or the different fabric companies come here to show their new things. And I hear Tiffany and some of them in the office, oh my God, oh, the oing and the owing. I don't understand it, but a lot of excitement going on. A new fabric. Well, fabric really is art. And especially in the old tapestry days, I mean, I appreciate so much as these vendors come in and I'm sure, and I know you guys use these materials as well. There is such history behind these fabrics. And when you see fabrics that just blow your mind, like you look at it, you're like, how do they even design that? Look at the construction in this. Look at the layers. Look at how this was made. This is just crazy. You mean how it's sewn? How it's constructed, how it's woven, how it's sewn. Sometimes we'll have embroideries where they'll be printed. Then you might have some pin tucking, like pleating, some manipulation of the fabric. Then you will have hand embroidery done on top of it. So you're just like, and the different threading. But isn't that a craft that's kind of disappearing? It's not. It's not in the old world. And now in countries like India, they are superior, skilled people that just can create and make the most beautiful fabrics, beautiful beading, intricate detail, just things that, you look up close, you're like, am I seeing that? Really done? I mean, you live for, you do live for that. You live for that moment. I really, that's what I want. I want to go somewhere and I want to just be odd. Yeah. I want to get my socks knocked off. Whenever I see an email, I'm like, I hope you have it. I hope you have it in that bag. I'm dying to see it. Because that, when you see it, it's got like, that's the starting point. I'm like, that's the new collection. We're doing this. We're going to build something around this because this is an amazing textile. And that becomes the statement piece. And then do you coordinate with these vendors, maybe tweaking color or tweaking things yourself? So you're really setting your fabrics and textiles apart. Sometimes it's perfect. Right. Sometimes, you know what? It's just, it works. It's beautiful. It's a whole, the harmony, the composition, the color, texture, everything is perfect. But sometimes we'll say, you know, we think that our customer and in the US, this would be a better, it'd be better to lean into this palette. Iteration, yeah. Yes. And the scale of this or we should remove this. And sometimes people are strange about some things like, there's always kind of a funny rule, like no fruit in the bedroom. So fruit is not. No fruit in the bedroom. So fruit is something that stylized, maybe you can get away with it, but if it starts to look too much like a bunch of grapes, somebody's going to be like, oh, is that grapes on my bed? I don't really like it. You know, it's such a specific area that you're curating. People are also curious about birds. I agree. A lot of people love birds and bird with phobias. And so I have a kind of, I was. There are some beautiful fabrics, but sometimes you're like. With birds, I agree. I realize that will maybe be a little bit tough for some people. I actually, so what's, what's a, is there a design that's kind of a universal, most popular that? A lot of, so in, in textiles, we have like a damask design, which is kind of like a frame design. Yeah. That's kind of more of a classic thing. Right. Now that can go modern. That can go clean. Yes. Yeah. So many different ways. So I feel like that's a very easy thing to live with. But so traditional tech, traditional motifs, I think are popular leaves and natural things tend to also be nice choices for the bedroom too as well. Because for the most part too, we're talking about somewhere where somebody goes to rest. They have to feel like it's. Tranquility. It's nice. Right. Everybody wants it and we try to offer something for everybody, but generally a harmonious palette is a desired thing. Is betting your biggest category? We, how many other categories? So we have pillows, which is just, I mean gangbusters. We have hundreds of thousands of pillows. I need to start relying on you for pillows more. And linens we have. And again, it's a lot of these fabrics we seek out are really unusual ones. So for our pillows, we try to go and find these really unusual fabrics. When you say pillows, you mean like throw pillows. Throw pillows. On a couch. Yeah. So for outdoor. Outdoors another category. That's kind of a separate category we have, which is an interesting and growing category. Then we also have our poultry. We make headboards, ottomans, benches. We do some storage benches. Yeah, you are big about bento. And. So is that all custom? We have product. It can be. Because we can customize anything. So you come to Eastern accents, you could say, listen, I have this custom made bed. It's a, this size mattress. You make me sheets and everything for it. We could do it. You give us the measurements and we make it. We've made beds for NBA athletes. That are extra long. That are huge. So, you know, the scale of them is enormous. So the beds we make are custom and even their mattresses then are custom also because they're just so huge. Right. What about? How much of your business is retail? Retail stores or retail chains or? Retail isn't a huge part for business. We're mainly a business to business. We encourage the public to go to look and see our product and buy from designers that carry our line, that have our binders and all of our sales materials or go to stores. Like in Florida, we, you can find our product in bears, Robin Stuckey, stores like that. So those are the chains? Yeah, those are chains. Those are furniture stores. There's not many though. They're pretty healthy down here, but there's not as many around the U.S. anymore. So most of our product is sold through designers and through interior designers who are working on full homes. People will get a much better. And they get a better pricing if we don't, we protect our customers by making sure that if they do buy it from us, they realize they're going to pay more. You've always been very good about that. Eastern Accents has. How often do you release new collections every single month? So we used to do collections twice a year at High Point. We'd go to High Point. We'd have 15, 16 collections, new beds. And what would happen is people would come in and they look and by bed three, they're lazing over. They just, they can't take it anymore. By bed six, they're done. You might have lost them. It just was so much to absorb and learn and layer take about. It take in. It's just a little overwhelming. And then over COVID time, it was interesting. I started to think like, why are we doing this? Why are we actually? Wow. So for a long time, that's how you are very long time. That's how we did it. But over COVID, it was nice because we had time to just sort of think. I thought, this is so much pressure we're putting on our photography, our swatch department, everything to get all of this product ready for this big launch. Then we go out there and then people glaze over after seeing two or three of them. It's almost like we're doing an injustice to these new collections that all require a ton of time and energy and resources and money to get out there. So I thought, why don't we try something different? What if we just decided instead of doing it twice a year, why don't we do it constantly? And that way we might keep our customer more engaged, launch every month. Maybe you look what we introduced this month isn't right for you, Tiffany, but next month, maybe we've got something and you think that's perfect. So how has that launch come about? So every month you're launching a new collection and that's through photography, through social media, through internet. All that. And immediately when we launch it, we will get requests for swatches. People might say, oh, I'm working on something. This might work in that project or that proposal. They get the fabrics, the swatches, and then they can place an order and we will ship immediately. So once we launch a collection, we have the fabric and stock, we can take orders. So you do stock all the fabric. Is it made to order immediately? It is made to order. And the reason we do a made to order is a lot of times the fabrics from bolt to bolt might have variations in die lots or things like that. When you place your order, we want to make sure that your actual bed set is cut from the same bolt of fabric so that everything is consistent. So the light in the room is good so that the fabric isn't, it's all perfectly matched. And we make sure that we match the die lots and match the product before it goes out to our customers. And do you launch it to a seasonal aspect or literally just? We've learned yes. There are certain things. We start, we try to do tropical for Florida early in the year. January, February, realizing we're probably going to hit that market then. We try to do something very glam, a little bit more festive, and we kind of dot those through the year, but we usually have one as well that we'll try to launch in December because it's a little bit more seasonal. So that's appropriate. So we try to hit the right time where people might be looking at buying that product at that particular stage. Do you have a best seller? We do have a best seller. America loves blue. Oh yeah. Blue is, I don't know, blue is just that, even though there's so many different segments, like we designed for American Southwest. We do Southeast. We do Lake looks. We do Mountain looks. That's a lot of product. It's a lot of product. A lot of design. But blue is huge. Our current best seller that we have in our line is called Amberlynn, and it's blue and kind of taupe and white, very clean look. And that one just, sometimes this happens. It's magic. It just sort of hits all markets, all areas, and everybody loves it. Male, female, everything. So take us through the design process. So how do you come up with a new idea? How many fabrics are needed in here? Do you like once a month all sit down or you sit down as a creative director go, okay, we're going to create a new, whatever it might be. Does that take an hour, a week, two weeks? Like, what's going to be the bolster? What's going to be, like, it's all components. It is like building a puzzle, and not all the puzzle pieces come together so well, and sometimes they don't work, and you have to pivot and do something else. But we usually, what we do is we see so many fabrics from different mills. We have a really vast archive in our library, in our factory. So we have probably like 50 clothing rails full of fabric. It's all separated by vendor. We date everything that comes in and look at it. So we realize if this fabric came in, and let's say, two years ago, three years ago, if it's from a mill, we know they'll be able to weave it again. But if it's from a converter, we know we might have continuity issues. So we're a little bit reluctant to bring it in because once we start, it takes us about a year to launch that collection. Wow. A year. Yeah, fully. Wow. It takes a long time. Yeah. Sometimes it could be a little shorter, but I would say the average is... But you're launching one every month. Every month. So you've got so many things in the arsenal. It's crazy. A lot of little duckies in our out there. A lot of duckies. And sometimes some of the ducks don't behave, and something falls apart. And we find out right before we're ready to launch, you know what? This mill can't get this fabric anymore. We're like, OK, we got to take it out. Let's just move everything up instead. And then we go, we work on this, and we put it back into the mix. So it's a ton of problems solving, and there's things that you can never anticipate that are going to happen. And what we do, but to get back to what you're asking, Scott, so we look at all the fabrics, we pull aside ones that are really inspiring and beautiful. Main fabrics that are kind of like the anchor fabric of the group. Then what we do is we have those laid out. We start to build boards around it, just like you do Tiffany with your clients and everything. We put all the coordinates and there's a certain balance you want to get with coordinates and you want certain colors to be brought out and everything. We sometimes will customize fabrics and trims to go with it. Put everything together. We have to send out spec sheets on all of our fabrics so we make sure that we can get continuity on it. From the mills. From the mills, from the smire. We have to have all the information on the fabric. We input all of that. We have to make sure that our purchasing knows what it is. We name it. Everything comes in, then we start to play with the fabrics. We put it together. It's kind of a balance. It's like finding that perfect equilibrium and the design, like where the bolster just has enough punch or enough impact on the top of the bed. You don't want anything to overpower everything else. So it's a very fine-tuned equation that we hit in our design. And then we make the prototypes and we have in-house people that just do prototypes for us only. We're constantly making beds and we did have an office space that we called the board room, but now we just took all the tables and chairs out. We put beds in there. We called it the bedroom. I was going to say, just, that's so cute. And the bedroom is where we review all of our products. Your magic happens, literally. It is. And we just, we generally layer everything together. We just cut and place it to see all of the placement. Then we get them sewn and it's great because we have our fabulous sewers right there. They'll just sew and cut it and make it right there and then. So it's an immediate gratification thing, which is huge. You look at it and you're like, boy, that turned out really cool. That just worked. We have six designers that do this all the time. Both time. Yes. And then once we look at the collection, we decide, okay, this looks really good. Now we realize we're designing it for this customer, this part of the U.S., this demographic and this kind of a lifestyle. So we try to design it in the best possible way for that customer. So is price point always, you know, somewhat the same or do you ever have to tweak things due to price points? With that perfect equation, how much does that play into it? Sometimes we might hit a situation where we're like, oh, once it's in pricing, we kind of get a red flag and we're like, okay, hold on one second. The bolster pillow is beautiful, but let's just look at it because it's the same price as two Euro shams. And then you're like, just relatively, that could throw a lot of people off. So we do use common sense. Where we look at it and we say, okay, so how can we get to this? Or what could we change to make it more in line with where it should be so that it's relative to the price of the bed? We're not driven by price. We're driven by the style and the look and the feel, but we do have to take price into account. And that usually happens when it is in pricing and coding. And before then, we have all of our salespeople, we have our marketing, we have photography. We all review the beds. So we look at the beds together. So the designer gets up, presents the bed. It's very much like a crit situation in art school. So it's an open forum. There's no feelings involved. This is purely, we are looking at the merits of the sales of this bed and strategy and where the market is and who would want this? I love the design that goes into that. I mean, the level of detail and execution to get to that point. And it's nice because we're able to talk about different things that we've done. So some of the designers will try new techniques, new manufacturing styles or come up with something new. And we're able to point it out so everybody on the company sees it. And then we know that's something we need to run with. Then we know that's something that we need to incorporate in our custom workroom because this is something that customers may want to incorporate in their own designs. So we tried to make sure that when we introduce something that's new, it goes all across the board. And then do you try to keep this cheating aspect more universal? Yes. For the most part, sheets are going to be white. Yeah. They're going to sell. We have a lot of variety in our sheets and we have a lot of different types of raw materials we work with, whether it's percale or satin and different thread counts. And what we do is when we're photographing the bedding collection, we usually select a sheet set that looks, that's a lovely complement to it. So something that looks good, like whether it's linen or something with a lace insert, you know, to be a little bit more formal. So you just brought something up. I have to ask a question because I don't understand. Yes. I've heard it a million times. Thread count. Yes. How important is that? And how do you measure a thread count to a sheet or to... So the thread count... Is the higher the thread count the... The more it's the higher... Soft or... No, it's really... It's the higher the thread count, the more yarn that is in it. So and it's usually like per square inch. So you're like, you're talking about a thousand. It's a very, very fine thread count. It's very densely woven because it's a lot of threads that go in there. Does that mean it's better? It doesn't. Doesn't? It doesn't. So I always thought... Everybody thinks that though. It's kind of like a... Well, that's what I think is like to hide the thread count the better the sheet is, but why is it better? Is it softer? Is it... It's more expensive. I think it is more... It's a finer yarn. Right. But really the thing you want to think about with your sheets is you need a good quality yarn. Like you need a good cotton. And the good cotton is what is most important. And where do you think that comes from in your experience? So most of ours is like... Most of our linens are in Egyptian cotton. I was just going to ask you... And most of our linens come from Italy and that's where they're woven and finished. Egyptian meaning Egypt? Yes. The cotton is sourced in Egypt. Spun and everything finished, brought over to Italy and then woven in Italy in sheets. And how about like... Because I feel like with a bed, like how much do you think about like wrinkling and does the thread counts have any bearing with that? Like for me, I can't stand when it doesn't look pristine. You know. Tiffany has the sheets ironed before they go back on a bed. Well, that's every week. Yeah. Well, how do you... They're going to wrinkle as soon as you get on it while you're ironing it. But it's such a good feeling, Scott. When you get into a sheet and iron it in a bath. I agree with that. Perfectly pressed. It feels so nice and taut. It's one of those things that it's just a personal preference because we also have a stonewashed Italian linen that is very, very soft and it's wrinkled. Stonewashed. Stonewashed. It's a particular chemical process that they wash the fabric in. So the fabric, the linen kind of breaks down, fibers become very soft. So it's not scratchy at all. But it's linen, it's creased, it's meant to be creased. You're really not meant to iron it. But some people still do. Still do. Oh yeah. I would definitely be still doing that. So is that part of your process too, thinking of what's going to wrinkle, what's going to give you the long term, like especially with a duvet or certain pillow? Those things obviously are not meant to be washed and ironed every day. Yes. A lot of our product, because it's made using multiple components and multiple fibers, like let's say we have a pillow and this one is mainly like this could be viscose and cotton, this one could be linen, whatever. You have so many different variations and you've got a trim on it. So in order to make sure, you can't wash them because it's just the blanket care doesn't work for them and really it's just dry clean because it's so many different components that are in there and different materials. Something could shrink a lot if it's washed. So do you. Then all of a sudden you're like, oh no, my pillow looks like it's all bunched up here and it's like because the core shrank but the fabric didn't. So it can change things like that. That's so interesting. So you have a lot of employees, like over 300 in Chicago. How difficult it from a standpoint of the people who are doing, I don't know, the determined knowledge of sewing or. Factory. Yeah. Is it difficult to find those types of skilled workers? They're artists. They are artists. Like I said earlier, I think that's kind of like disappearing. I mean, I don't think there's a 16 year old out there saying, I really want to sew. I really want to sit at a sewing machine and sew or I really want to cut fabric. So are you training people? Are you. No, we're not training people. Our workforce is a little older and a lot of our people have been with us for a very long time. But you have to be thinking about. Back up. How do we. Yes. So keep continuity. Because the company's been around since the late 80s. Now we do have, one thing that we do have, which is nice is we do have a lot of families working for us. So a lot of times it's great because it's like, well, mom sows and her daughter's sew and maybe their daughter's sew too because they grew up around it. And that's really encouraging because that's the way it gets passed down and they learn it from them. So then they come to us and they're able to sew. We haven't had to train people yet. When people come in, they have the base level still set. Yes. We do train people how to cut fabrics. And cutting is an art form too. You got to cut it. You've got to center something. Yes. You know, we don't, we cut everything one at a time. We don't bulk cut in layers because we have a half inch seam allowance in our factory and that's what we allow, whether we're doing custom product or our own product. And the sewers know that that's what our allowance is. And when product goes through quality, like through being ready for shipping, the people that pull the product will actually measure it to make sure that everything is the correct size. Never thought about so much goes into it. Oh my gosh. I know. Every product. And it just makes people appreciate that every detail. I mean, those little tiny things just mean so much at the end. Your pillow, which looks very simple, is probably touched by maybe like 10 different people around the factory. A pillow. And I need to give them time. A pillow. Because somebody has to pull that fabric down, someone has to cut it. Somebody has to go and get the zipper, the thread and all the components that are needed, whatever else needed to make that pillow. Then it has to go and get overlocked. It gets overlocked first. So we overlock which is like that edging so that the fabric will not come apart when the product is fully made. Then it goes to the actual sewer who will sew the pillow. Then it goes over to our, sometimes we have topical things like nail heads, things like that that we do on top of it. That goes to another department where all hand application gets done. Then it moves to our packing kind of department where orders are pulled. They'll put the pillows inside out. They'll look at it, make sure everything is good, place it on the order. Then it goes to the packing table. They'll look at the packing table, they lint roll, they cut loose threads. Beautiful. They will pull the pillow that you've specified that you want in there because we offer three different fills. They fill it nicely into the corners. They tag it in the zipper. They don't puncture any holes in the fabric. And then they'll put it in a plastic bag, wrap it nicely, place it in the box. So when you get it, you just open it up and it's ready to go. That really is a special, special. It is a skill set. I have packed pillows too. I mean, it takes time to push and get your pillows nicely into the corners and to feel like it's evenly dispersed and that the pillow looks beautiful. Right. I mean, and then what about duvets and any techniques or any evolution to that? Not really. The interesting thing that's happened that we've seen with duvets is we started offering comforters because custom side of our business customers wanted comforters. Whether their moms had it. I feel like that's a cyclical thing. They come in like that. I get it. It could be. And just to comfort them. They look good. And then sometimes people are like, I'm just, I don't want to fill a duvet. I don't want to spend 20 minutes putting the duvet insert in. I get it. So we started offering comforters and they were just so successful that we incorporated it into our line. So now every collection that we do, we offer a comforter version as well. We probably sell an equal amount of comforters and duvets. And when it comes to sizing, like you're, obviously they're standard sizing, but like when you take even comforters, just the evolution of comforter and how they would be one piece and you'd roll the pillows in or someone hang long and some would be seamed and then they'd have the skirt. I mean, there's such. And we do that in our custom workroom. We will do these bedspreads where the bedspread goes all the way down to the ground. It's not something we offer, but you'll do it. We will do it. Whatever you want. So fabulous. So fabulous. So obviously we could talk about the little ins and outs of bedding for days, but there is a really, you're sold at High Point as your main source of like your showroom. And that's open year round. It's open at market. And then it's open like by appointment if people want to see it. Usually what we do is we do such a, we change every single market and we do such a big renovation. We change the layout a little bit. We put in new bed collections. We'll build new vignettes. We put up wallpaper paint, different elements like that. So between markets, we're getting it ready for the next market, which is a lot of work. But we do have a showroom in Chicago that people come to. Is that part of the factory? That's where the factory is. It's right at the factory. And we always welcome people to come to the factory if they ever want to tour. We're happy to show them around. Because it's such a great education experience. And it's really cool to be able to see it. And I feel very proud that we make these items and we still make them in the U.S. And I think most people, when they go and see how it's done, they come away too with a newfound respect. Such a new appreciation. For the product. And you look at it and you're like, somebody designed that and I just saw that being made. And that took a lot of people to make that one item. So spending a lot of time in High Point must have been what led to the Manor Project. Pandora's Manor. Tell us how that came about. What Pandora's Manor is. I've seen it. It's truly a masterpiece. It is. Thank you. In every detail. I mean literally every layer of every level. It's almost a reason when you go to High Point, you have to go to the Manor. You have to go see it or experience it. You really do. I mean High Point, as you guys know, it's kind of an interesting city. It is the world headquarters of home furnishings. But it's kind of a weird, interesting town. You're like, it's not beautiful like Charleston or something like that. Like you would think so. Yes. You would think at home furnishings. The showrooms are amazing. But outside of it, you're like, what is there? There's city blocks. Yes. But you walk two blocks or three blocks kind of out of High Point. And it's a little sketchy. But you come to the Manor and it's like, what is this? What is this tucked away? So right behind Leaf Furniture, the Manor is there. It's on High Avenue and it's like the old historic district. The home is beautiful. It was built in 1905. It was built for Henry Frazier. Henry Frazier was one of the founding members of like the furniture business. So him, Tom Lundson and all the rest were the first people to set up furniture companies in High Point. And his home right there was like just within walking distance to the factory. And he also had set up the Alamedesk company. So this house that he built was built in 1905. The train tracks are right there. Right there. And the house was, it still is, but at the time it was just magnificent. Very big house. Yes. Very large. 15,000 square feet. State home. Beautiful. And it's beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. The porch goes up. Southern porch. Yeah. Wrap around porch. And then the woodwork is amazing. And you know what I appreciate is the scale too. And for that time it really like, it's stately. It was. It was very impressive. And this house was only built 10, 15 years after the Biltmore. So it's like a very similar time period as the Biltmore. And it's really a little, it's this amazing little jewel that when you're in it you're like, I don't really know where I am, but this is, it is special. So Eastern accents acquired the house in I think 2014, 2015 when Rid van, the owner of the company, bought the house. It was not in the best shape. It was. Whose hands has it been in? It's only been in three different owners. The Frasiers who built it and Henry Frasier built it. His wife's name was Pandora. That's why we call it Pandora's Manor because the house was really her house. And they had one daughter Isla and they lived there until the late twenties when they sold the house. Wow. So they didn't have it that long. They didn't have it that long. And in the house there's an amazing stained glass window at the top of the stairs on the landing and Henry Frasier was a religious man and he commissioned that. It's a Madonna in child, but he commissioned it to commemorate his wife Pandora and his daughter Isla as well. And when we did our addition, we built kind of a whole protective area around it and we backlit it with LED lights so that it's lit up the whole time because the end of the house ended there and the poor stained glass was just getting beat up from the exposure of the sun and everything hitting it in the back. Has it always been called Pandora? No, we called it. So once it was Pandora's Manor, then they sold the house to the Wilson family. The Wilson family were the first four dealership in the town. And so not furniture. Not furniture at all. And Eastern accents acquired it from the Wilson family. So we are like the third owners. And when we got it, it was crazy plumbing and like step up bathrooms so you know all of the pipes were there because it's much easier to put the pipes under the floor as opposed to going into the walls. And a lot of the space had to be reconfigured. But when I started looking into the history of the house and found out about who built it and when it was built, I thought, well, we have to call it Pandora's because it's her house. And I do believe it's her house and it's their house. And I do feel like that. I feel like I was the steward of the house and it was my job to make the house feel today just like it felt when it was 1905. This amazing. It really feels like. And it does feel like. Thank you. It does. The layering is truly masterful. Any room that you sit in is just so relaxing and cozy. The house has a good soul and a good energy and I. Has a wonderful energy. Thank you. And it took a long time like I would go down there and just stay there on my own and I would walk around the house to see like what I needed to change or how the flow could be better with minimally invasive things. And we would take down some of the door frames or the woodwork because it was so lovely, deep old generous woodwork and we would repurpose and use it somewhere else. And then there were like some old fireplaces we had to take out, you know, things like that. So how did you go about putting your group of artisans together like such a departure from pillows and you know this bedding like definitely into it's an interior design architectural digest. It is. So we kind of thought, you know, we want to. Has it been featured in architectural digest or anything like that? It should be. Yeah, it should be. Thank you. But what was interesting is we wanted it to feel a little like Alice in Wonderland. You're in this historic home that feels like it should. It should be in 1905. Like you're walking into the past, but you have today's conveniences. And then we wanted the bedrooms to all feel completely different. Like you open up the door and you're in a whole different world. And that's really how the bedrooms feel when you're in them. It's everything is such a unique signature and handwriting. And that's why we went and we asked different designers that we knew to take on board a bedroom and bring their identity to that. And that's what we did. So how did you go about selecting who you were working with for that? And did you work on keeping continuity between them as well? What was their marching order? I gave them a very lim... I already did the bathrooms. The bathrooms were black and white as the base. And I picked all of the shower tile and everything. I didn't... I wanted there to be some consistency there. But other than that, they kind of had free reign on what they wanted to do, what they wanted to place, paint, wallpaper, decor, whatever. So we went to these designers, some of them we worked with, like Barthley and Celery and Tom. Amazing. And Madcap we worked with too and even Toby. So it was really nice because we already had a nice rapport with these designers. We knew they all had a different vision. And then we were able to say, you know what? Here's your room. You go and just make it amazing. And that's what they did. So at what point did it become an in? 2016, we kind of launched it, opened it up, then people could stay there and now anybody can stay there. And you can go and pick whatever room you want to stay in. So it's a bed and breakfast. It's a fully functioning bed and breakfast. And it's open near round. There was some event going on. And you already even had said to us, go get something to eat in one of the rooms. And we weren't hungry, but we walked into the dining room. It was such a beautiful over the top presentation. And just a display of food and the food that was being made. I was like, in the kitchen itself. So the kitchen is my favorite room. So the kitchen became like my own personal passion project. I was like, if I could build a perfect kitchen, I would make it like this. And that's what I did. And I picked things that I loved. I was very respectful again of the space and everything, but knowing what this beautiful exhibition kitchen that people could sit at where you could have a chef cook. Everybody could watch, interact where it's a different experience. So that was the kitchen that we built. I think it's a place, you know, I had a restaurant I mentioned to you last night long ago for a number of years. It's without a doubt a place that if you're a restaurant owner, you own a hotel. It's a place that people should go to experience the feeling that you get. Yes. Like, as soon as you walk, like we did a podcast a few weeks ago with a woman, an interior designer who designs with Feng Shui. Yeah. And the feel and the mood of the house. And when you walk into a house, you're the manner that you walk in and you immediately feel so comfortable. And it still feels like a home. Home. Yes. It never, it's a living, breathing entity. And it's... And the energy that you feel the energy. Yeah. I think so too. And I feel it. And every time I go down to High Point, I always... Do you stay there? I stay there, yes. And I just like it because I always sort of walk the house to make sure everything is good. I look around to see if there's something else I need to add because I'm constantly looking for different things to complete it or update or change and add or what can we improve on. And I walk around the grounds because a lot of times I'll go down in the summer and I'll spend maybe a week there and we start to plant things and I'll do different things because I love doing all of the flowers as well at Eastern accents in our showroom and at the Manor. And I love planting things in the garden that grow and we'll cut from what we have growing in the Manor. But you also do parties and events there as well. And we have parties and events there, yeah, special events at market. There's a lot of events that have been... There are weddings there. There are some weddings there. It's a perfect place. We used to have a tent in the back space. We don't have that anymore. But it's a lovely event for like a second wedding or a smaller wedding or a little bit something more intimate. And I feel like you definitely feel the connection to textiles when you walk in. So it's a completely different entity, but you can tell it's the house that Eastern accents brought back together. It has an overwhelming layering of... It does have a lot of layers and a lot of textiles. And for me, that's like the ultimate. We were able to incorporate all that. It's just so special. And we made all of the draperies. We hand-painted... The draperies are spectacular. Different things to complement the wallpaper. Like with... There are birds actually on the wallpaper there, but it's not in the bedroom, so it's okay. But we did hand-paint birds on some of the draperies swags and everything to tie in with the paper that we used in the main area. And just different rooms of different themes and things were curated and collected. I had bought... In the dining room, there's a map that's there and it's from the 50s. And it's a map of North Carolina. And it's huge. I mean, I don't know how people opened it up and actually plowed other way in the car, but it's a beautiful map. So I think I got it for $20 at a thrift store in High Point. Oh my goodness. I bought it and brought it to a local framers and had them dry-mount it and cut it into a triptych. And that became like the focal point for the dining room. And the dining room is very kind of about transportation and maps and all the rest, because the train's right there in front. It really is such a special place. So do the owners get over there often as well? What is their invite? Like the owners of Eastern Access? Yes. Not as sometimes. It's like more your baby. I feel like this. I've kind of claimed it as my baby. I stay there, but I just want to make sure that she's just always beautiful, that this house is always gorgeous and that whenever you walk in there, I'm genuinely happy when, like you said, Scott, your initial reaction you walk in there, like, this is amazing. And it just makes me happy to see it because it is a beautiful piece of architecture. It could have been easily wiped out. It could have been knocked down. Is it on the historic registry? Yes, it is. And what's crazy is the house to the right of it is also another historic house, the red egg. And that house was actually where Lee Furniture was, but they moved it to the space that it's in now. But you think, you know, in a city where people want showrooms and showroom spaces, it's so easy to say, well, this is a great piece of land. Let's just knock this house down and build a showroom. And it just would be such a travesty because I feel like this house is a gift to the people in the area. It really is. An amazing thing for people to see. It's a destination. It is. In and of itself. It is. So who puts together the staffing and the maintaining of the house? So we have separate staff. We have manager and everything that looks after the manner. So it's like a fully functioning entity on its own. And it's open year round and locals use it. People come there. We have, there's different people stay there. We've high point university there. We have a lot of parents from the university that once they come and stay there. That's where they want to stay. I like this. I want to stay here. And they have their favorite rooms or they try out different rooms. So it's really interesting. How many rooms are in it? There's only six rooms. Wow. So it's very intimate, very small, very personal. And generally if we have an event there, usually you're the only event that's there. So it's nice because again, it's intimate. You're not going to run into like another company or if it's your wedding, you get the whole place. Unbelievable. So is it always booked way in advance for high point? Oh yes. Market is tough. We've got a waiting list. I'm sure. We have a lot of regulars that just come. I would think, yes. I would think so. That's their home. It's true. It becomes like a home away from home. You just feel comfortable. You know, the staff, you know, what's there. We have snacks out all the time. We've got homemade cookies. It really is such an experience. What you want. What you want. Yeah. It's whatever you want. So what's next? What's next on your agenda? Oh, what is next? I mean, you've had an amazing year traveling with this own object and all that. This year has started off very inspiring with a lot of travel and a lot of exposure to a lot of different ideas. I don't think I've fully absorbed everything yet because I think it has to kind of, it's like coffee. It just has to run through the filter. So it's still going through the filter, but right now we're sort of busy because high point is coming hot on our heels in April. So that's going to be busy. We're working on doing some core cordless Roman shades, which is very, very exciting. I love that idea. Motorized shades, which is very cool. That's very cool. So it can, and their customized will obviously in width and height. Yes. Yes. It's really nice. When are those launching? So we've been working on it. We're hoping to launch it sometime this summer. We just want to make sure when we launch it, like we've hit our learning curve and made enough of them that we know exactly what works and what doesn't. Like a Roman shade? Yeah. A Roman shade. That to me is very exciting. It is exciting. And it's nice because they're all cordless and cordless is really the way to go because you just touch it and it goes up and you program to stop. I know what technology is amazing. The Roman control is pretty impressive. You just push the button and it'll stop automatically. And then you can actually have a program through your phone. So if you're on vacation, you could say you can program it to close your shades. Will you launch those on your website where people can customize it and then order it? Yes. Everything is customizable on our website and we actually have a whole rendering program for a lot of our headboards, things like that. So you can actually see the fabrics and our line rendered. You can add nail heads. Well, it's changed the stain of the woods, things like that. So is it just the fabrics that you handle or can people use their own? No, people can use their own. You could use your own. You could do COM. We do COM all the time. We do COM all the time and what's kind of funny and one thing I've noticed is we will do COM and I'll be looking at something that's made and I see amazing fabrics, which is really, really cool. So I feel like I get exposed to even more fabrics. But sometimes I'll go and I'll see it and I'll be like, oh no, this person just COM this fabric. They didn't realize we carry the same colorway. We have the same fabric. Like, that is so funny. That is so funny. They wouldn't have even had to have been shipped into us. They could have just used it. They could have saved us money. So it's, Easternax is always a good resource for fabric and trim because we carry such a range of it and we're always in stock because we needed to make our product to ship it out. So very rarely would you find our fabrics. So how many fabrics do you think you carry? Well, 50,000s. 50 racks. I mean, I can't even wrap my head around that. 50,000s. 50,000s in different fabrics. Fabrics and trims. It's a lot. Yeah. It really is such an operation. I mean, like really comprehending it is. It is. You stand back from it every now and then you get a little mind blown. I'm like, sometimes I watch through the factory and it's almost like I have a new perspective. And I'm like, God, how does this happen? How does this? But 5,000s. So, but I guess maybe people don't realize that they come in these roles. It's a heavy 50, 60 pounds of bolt. Yes. Not easy. We're like moving them around every day. Good workouts. It is a great workout. Oh, well, I love this conversation so much. And I just feel like you're so blessed to have this rich history and passion for textiles and to have landed in the United States and at Eastern accents. It's such a blessed career and existence. And met your husband and have your beautiful family. You are, you know, a dream. So thank you. Thank you. I am very blessed. I'm very, very fortunate. And thanks for having me on. We look forward to seeing you at High Point. Yes. We're going to see you too. We'll see you at the matter is right. Oh, I love that. Well, thank you for listening to iDesign Lab Podcast. iDesign Labs Podcast is an SW group production in association with the five star and TW interiors. To learn more about iDesign Lab or TW interiors, please visit twinteriors.com.