Dave
DeMattei is applying the magic he learned at Coach and J. Crew to
Williams-Sonoma's emerging brands. Will his vision connect with
consumers?
Dave
DeMattei knows what you want. That is, if you live in America, are
between the ages of 18 and 65 and prefer to spend less than huge sums on
stylish everyday items, DeMattei has a pretty good idea of what will
strike your fancy--maybe even better than you have. Right now, he says,
there's a good chance you will be enticed by one of the following:
chandeliers, end tables like the ones at the Hôtel Costes in Paris, and
anything teak; objects featuring monograms, including pajamas, hand
towels and, among a certain demographic, stackable jewelry boxes; bright
orange, powder blue and other colors typical of midcentury design,
whether you recognize them as such or not; and anything with a
functional detail built into it, like a beach towel with a cloth loop
for hanging or an ottoman that opens up to accommodate storage.
A
metal desk was the object of DeMattei's scrutiny one Friday afternoon
this past winter, and it was not faring well. "Do you see ..." he said
as he marched over to the desk, "... this raisin color?" Eyes wide and
eyebrows raised, he asked the question as if he had spotted an insect
traversing its shiny surface. The desk was displayed near the entrance
of the new Hold Everything store in San Francisco, a franchise that, in
his role as president of emerging brands at parent company
Williams-Sonoma Inc., DeMattei recently revamped. In place of the
familiar postcollege plastic drawers and storage bins was a design
extravaganza: Eichler-inspired architectural details, whimsical
dinnerware from Italy, powder-coated filing cabinets the pale blue of
Smythson paper, not to mention Jonathan Adler pillows and key chains
reminiscent of Prada's. DeMattei passed a mint green nylon preppie tote
bag, nodding approvingly. The desk, however, was not passing muster.
"That was a mistake," he said, eyes wide again. "It was supposed to be a
beautiful chocolate brown."
DeMattei,
48, has a confidence--and a sense of style--that cannot be ignored. And
he believes American consumers, or at least a sizable subset of them,
are equally discriminating. "I'm aiming at people who appreciate
design," explains DeMattei, whose other tasks include broadening the
appeal of Williams-Sonoma's lower-priced West Elm line and launching
Williams-Sonoma Home, a furniture and housewares counterpart to the
company's namesake kitchen brand. (Pottery Barn, of course, is the
company's other marquee brand, accounting for roughly half of its $3.1
billion in annual sales.) "There is a whole population," DeMattei
continues, "of people who want stylish home products that are a little
more contemporary and that come at a great price."
So
strong are DeMattei's convictions on the subject that they made
themselves heard from a tiny, out-of-the-way office in the finance
department at Gap. Hired as a numbers guy in the 1980s, DeMattei rose
through the company and held six positions in 11 years, including chief
financial officer of Gap Inc. at age 34 and president of Banana Republic
at 36. He left the company after restructuring reduced his role, but
during his tenure he quietly learned everything he could about designs
that would sell. "I made sure I was always hanging around the creative
people," he says. "It allowed me to get involved."
He
deepened this creative training after being recruited to J. Crew in
1995 by co-founder Emily Woods, who put him in charge of building a
retail division from the ground up. Among the highlights: launching J.
Crew's flagship Manhattan Soho store, which DeMattei says made $1
million in its first 10 days, with him helping bag merchandise on
opening weekend. From then on, he started each workday with a visit to
the Soho store for an interview with the manager about what was selling
and why. Soon after Woods and her family sold J. Crew, in 1997, DeMattei
moved over to Coach North America, where he became president and
remerchandised stores to look like boutiques rather than luggage shops.
By the time he left, 4 1/2 years later, Coach's single C's were on their
way to rivaling the double ones at Chanel--and net income had more than
quadrupled.
The
peripatetic DeMattei is now settled in downtown San Francisco at
Williams-Sonoma's new "emerging brands" headquarters, a quirky,
architectural bungalow that acts as a petri dish for the gestating
lines. Last fall, under his direction, the company launched a spin-off
brand, Williams-Sonoma Home, offering an eclectic mix of hand-selected
upscale furniture from Europe. The headquarters is filled with the
stuff. A maple occasional table is stacked, upside-down, within a
life-size diorama with a gray-flannel pleated sofa and a lamp from
Blake's Hotel in London. Stray swatches of silver for the 2005 holiday
season are scattered on the floor as if it were the day after Christmas,
even though it's not yet spring. "This Irish farm table has been hugely
successful for us," says DeMattei, who introduced the Home line via
catalog. "It can be really dressy or really casual, and there's not a
lot of that in the marketplace."
DeMattei
drops the names and opinions of his designers constantly and has ready
praise for his artistic minions--the Metropolitan Home contributing
editor who writes the catalog copy, for instance ("She's fantastic"), or
the woman dubbed the director of flower arranging ("We think it's a big
part of the style of the catalogs," DeMattei explains. "They agonize
over every picture"). But he also initiates design decisions from time
to time. "You know the movie Something's Gotta Give?" he says. "There
were all these magnificent upholstered beds in it. I came back and said,
'We have to do this!'" Thus inspired, the Home collection now has five
upholstered headboard designs with a choice of 49 different fabrics.
Each variation can be previewed online, with a toll-free number that
aims to deliver a swatch to you within 48 hours. Time from order to
doorstep: 45 days.
There's
no question that DeMattei and the brands he's been given to shepherd
are critical to the future of Williams-Sonoma. Despite the dominance of
the company's Pottery Barn brand, Wall Street analysts say it is
merchandising savvy across multiple areas that gives Williams-Sonoma an
edge over old guard competitors--that instead of relying on a single
blockbuster to please all tastes, the company offers a series of more
targeted indie options, from Pottery Barn Kids and PB Teen to DeMattei's
universe of Williams-Sonoma Home, Hold Everything and West Elm. "They
have figured out that to be successful and create a loyal consumer base,
you need to have an identity, to market to a lifestyle," says Marshal
Cohen, chief industry analyst at NPD Group in Port Washington, N.Y.
"It's all about personality." And while right now DeMattei's brands
account for less than 10% of the company's overall annual sales,
analysts report that Williams-Sonoma believes that in time the West Elm
brand, for one, could be even larger than Pottery Barn.
DeMattei's
job is, among other things, to make sure the personality of each of the
newer brands he runs is uniquely appealing. West Elm was recently
transformed by DeMattei from a stoic indigo-and-green-themed housewares
catalog into the furniture equivalent of Aveda. A newly opened store in
Corte Madera, Calif., just outside San Francisco, has an organic
feel--the entrance is teak and glass, and there are hemp ropes at the
cash register plus a recycled, reclaimed, scuffed-wood floor. Still, it
manages to be fashionable. There are the best-selling dark-wood Moroccan
headboards, lilac-colored comforters and pillows covered in the
metallic sequins and beads that showed up on every spring runway.
On
a recent visit, DeMattei surveyed the store the way a different sort of
fellow watches a football game: synapses firing, emotions at the ready,
eyes alert to every detail. "Look at the age group, I'm telling you,"
he says, noting the diversity in the customers. "We thought this [store
would attract] really young, first-time home buyers, but when you watch,
it's really a mix of people."
"What's
the hot item?" DeMattei asks the manager, who points out the geometric
storage unit (DeMattei has the same one in his office) and the
mocha-colored ottoman, which is upholstered in Ultrasuede and sells for
$99. The same ottoman in green, last season's best seller, is off in a
corner, marked down. "You need to keep moving," he notes, "because
tastes change, fashions change, lifestyles change."
DeMattei
is clearly in his element, despite his jump from finance to fashion to
furniture. West Elm's Manhattan store, open only six months, is already
the company's highest-grossing retail outlet, and he is next eyeing the
late-2005 rollout of three Williams-Sonoma Home stores, starting with an
imposing, 18,000-sq.-ft. emporium in Beverly Hills. Analyst Lauren
Cooks Levitan of SG Cowen sees "huge growth potential" in DeMattei's
portfolio. His superiors are equally bullish. "Dave lives and breathes
the brands and, most importantly, understands what our customer wants,"
says Williams-Sonoma chairman Howard Lester. "We are thrilled with
what's happening."
DeMattei
remains obsessed with consumers' evolving tastes. He predicts that we
will soon have a hankering for a more colorful laundry room, for
instance, and that in the not too distant future, buyers will be seeking
out smaller furniture. He is adjusting the products in his
emerging-brands stable accordingly. And on the weekends, he is testing
out his visions in his own home, which he has redecorated--or what he
calls "remerchandised"--twice since moving to San Francisco from New
York. It seems he has found his niche.
The World of Williams-Sonoma
Founder
Chuck Williams opened his first kitchenwares store in Sonoma, Calif.,
in 1956. Nearly 50 years later, his little shop is a $3.1 billion
multibrand empire
WILLIAMS-SONOMA
FOUNDED 1956
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $900 million
STORES 254
BEST SELLERS Silicone spatulas, wooden spoons, whisks, gourmet olive oils and vinegars
INSIDE STORY
A newly spruced-up catalog with more recipes and ideas for entertaining
could boost business at the namesake brand, which is already a solid
performer
POTTERY BARN
FOUNDED 1949 (acquired by Williams-Sonoma in 1986)
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $1.4 billion
STORES 183
BEST SELLER Overstuffed Manhattan armchair
INSIDE STORY
After a slower-than-expected holiday season, the company's biggest
division is regaining momentum, thanks in part to growing website
traffic, up 43%
POTTERY BARN KIDS
FOUNDED 1999
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $450 million
STORES 87
BEST SELLER Child-size Anywhere armchair
INSIDE STORY
The baby and gift registry at this enormously successful spin-off is
particularly strong, up 32% last year, compared with a 16% rise in
brandwide sales. Furniture also continues to boom, even though items are
often available on back order only
POTTERY BARN TEEN
FOUNDED 2003
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $100 million+
STORES None
BEST SELLER Locker desk with multicolored metal drawers
INSIDE STORY
Sales jumped a whopping 98% in 2004. There are still no announced plans
to open retail outlets, but catalog circulation increased more than 50%
last year to 28 million
Sources: William-Sonoma Inc.; SG Cowen & Co.; TIME Estimates
Dave's Domain
DeMattei's
brands today account for less than 10% of Williams-Sonoma's overall
sales, but there are high hopes for growth. The company claims that West
Elm, for instance, has the potential to be as big as Pottery Barn in
revenues
HOLD EVERYTHING
FOUNDED 1985
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $60 million
STORES 9
BEST SELLERS Book-cloth-covered photo box and magazine butler
INSIDE STORY It is a turnaround project for DeMattei, who has updated the product line. A revamped website was launched in November
WILLIAMS-SONOMA HOME
FOUNDED 2004
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $30 million
STORES None
BEST SELLERS Bedford upholstered furniture collection, Wilshire sofa
INSIDE STORY
This recently introduced brand hasn't yet taken off like the Pottery
Barn spin-offs, but its customized-upholstery program is an early hit.
The first three retail stores are due to open late this year
WEST ELM
FOUNDED 2002
ESTIMATED ANNUAL SALES $30 million+
STORES 4
BEST SELLERS Decorative pillows, Moroccan headboard, Overlapping Squares headboard
INSIDE STORY
The six-month-old Manhattan store is already Williams-Sonoma's
highest-grossing retail outlet. Brandwide sales were up 76% last year.
Seven stores are due to open in 2005
Sources:
William-Sonoma Inc.; SG Cowen & Co.; TIME Estimates DeMattei
surveyed the store the way a different sort of fellow watches a football
game
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