Marteks Launches First Upholstery Collections to Complement Curtain Fabric Says Kaya Cinoglu
Marteks A.S. will introduce its first upholstery collection ever in September with a greatly expanded offering for Heimtextil 2019 according to Kaya Cinoglu, Principal.
Rumors of the forthcoming upholstery collection broke at Proposte where Marteks is a regular exhibitor in the Villa Erba since 2015 and “some of the editors have bought already,” he says. “The upholstery collection will be around 30-40 products with color lines. We intend to cover price points of 10-25 euro for the most part.” “We are also working on a very high end upholstery line with a very good designer and this will be ready for Proposte 2019. This collection will be around 30 pieces with color lines covering different looks for luxury interiors."
” Why is Marteks, a curtain fabric house, breaking with tradition and going down the upholstery road? Cinoglu says upholstery fabrics are always in fashion because “they do not really have alternatives, and what we have experienced developing and producing dual-purpose fabrics is that the repeat orders have been more successful.”
“There are a couple of reasons. The first reason is we see a decline in demand and sales for the decorative curtains in the interior shops,” says Cinoglu. “There has been a big trend towards other window treatments such as blinds, window shades, and shutters. Designers are working on minimalistic designed interiors and they tend to use less and less decorative curtains. Our company’s focus for the past couple of years has been at the middle to high end. Brands working on such alternatives tend to use less expensive fabrics when they use curtain fabrics at all, so we are not competitive enough for the most part.”
“We will follow the same strategy of aiming for the better end of the consumer market, working first with our existing clients to develop creative, different upholstery qualities for them. Almost all of our clients already do have upholstery lines. We want to compete with the higher-level producers, not the inexpensive commercial products. This will also complement our drapery product offerings, so we can offer products for the whole interior market rather than focusing only on the decorative fabric part.”
“We have made agreements with Dutch and American designers. I can’t give you names at the moment. We also have consultancy agreements with experienced technical engineers in this field. Our aim is to first reach and work with our editor and jobber client base to keep developing products exclusively for them. That will be our main target, and we already do have a few articles in their upcoming collections. We might be working with some manufacturers in the future as we progress further, but that’s not our primary intention for the moment.”
“We will be working with our existing looms. We already have fully integrated
finishing capabilities in-house, and our machines are fully equipped with
different kinds of finishing for upholstery products, including aero and various
other types of finishing. We have just invested in new piece dyeing and yarn
dyeing machines, as well as on a brandnew Benninger Swiss warping machine, to
avoid capacity issues in the future. We want to better serve our client’s needs,
developing for both decorative curtains and upholsteries.”
