Producers See First Samples
Of New Line Of Mohair Carpet

By Colleen Schreiber

KERRVILLE — The mohair market outlook remains discouraging, but growers at the recent Mohair Council of America summer directors' meeting here were given some upbeat news about a variety of new value-added products, some already on the market and others expected to be introduced in the spring of 1999.

About a year ago, directors of the council, with guidance from a variety of experts in the trade, embarked on something of a new approach, shifting more spending away from promotion and advertising and into product development, specifically products that could be manufactured and marketed in the U.S. A value-added committee was appointed and charged with coming up with ways to "revive" the faltering mohair industry.

The industry is now slowly but surely seeing the results from the work initiated by that particular committee.

It was decided from the beginning that the focus should be on coarser hair, ranging from 31 to 35 microns. Three projects toward which MCA has directed its attention over the past year include a Mexican yarn manufacturer, a line of mohair carpets, and a new line of mohair blend fabrics being developed by MCA in conjunction with the International Textile Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and other private mills.

Perhaps the presentation that sparked the most interest from growers and buyers in the trade was the one given by carpet manufacturers Laurie Bray, founder and president of Atelier Carpets, and John Sheffield, vice president of the company.

Atelier Carpets became acquainted with the Mohair Council this past January while attending Surfaces, a major floor covering show conducted each year in Las Vegas. The Mohair Council was there to see if they could drum up interest among manufacturers for developing a line of mohair carpeting. Following the show, MCA sent direct mail communications to interested manufacturers.

Atelier responded immediately, and a relationship was developed. Bray and Sheffield attended the Texas Tour this past April and became more familiar with the mohair industry. Following that experience, Atelier teamed up with MCA to follow through on a project to develop a line of mohair carpets.

The 100 percent wool carpet manufacturing company, now three years in business, has a strong tie to natural fibers. Mohair, Sheffield said, makes a nice additional fit.

In designing and developing their first line of wool carpeting, Bray tried to meld nature and art together. Colors that were used, she said, were reminiscent of Impressionist paintings. Their first line had five different color-coordinated patterns which allowed decorators and consumers to mix and match to achieve different effects throughout the home. This initial line was introduced at Surfaces and received a great reception, she said.

The following year Bray introduced the Organic collection. It was also a color-coordinated line with direct ties again to art and nature. This particular line, Bray said, is named after various trees.

The design community, Sheffield told listeners, is Atelier's number one client. The current line of 100 percent New Zealand wool carpet is marketed specifically for the high-end residential community. The mohair carpet, he said, will be sold into this market as well. Atelier has 30 sales representatives positioned all across the country. Their major markets are Chicago, Boston, New York, Florida, Texas, Washington, and the West Coast.

To help producers better understand the dynamics of the carpet industry, Sheffield gave a brief overview of the industry and explained some of the challenges facing carpet manufacturers.

The carpet industry, Sheffield said, hasn't grown much over the last couple of years, and manufacturers are becomingly increasingly concerned. Stagnant growth in large part is attributed to increasing popularity among competing floor coverings.

"The carpet industry has taken a pretty good beating from other floor coverings, especially the laminates, artificial wood covering, so to speak," Sheffield said. "Most of that growth has come at carpet’s expense.

"No one seems to want to stay with something for very long," Sheffield continued. "That’s good and bad. It’s good for someone like us who wants to develop new products."

In an attempt to stave off influence from other floor coverings, the carpet industry has launched a new ad campaign which presents a warm fuzzy feeling of families spending time lying around on their carpets.

Sheffield also noted that there has been a tremendous amount of consolidation in the carpet industry.

"The big guys just continue to get bigger. Consolidation allows them to become more efficient and it allows them to reduce their overhead."

Retailers, he added, are also going through a tremendous amount of consolidation.

"We’re seeing more and more Carpet Ones and Carpet Max stores, which are buying cooperatives that have gotten together to demand best pricing from the manufacturers," Sheffield explained. "That change has caused the dealer to homogenize his products, which in turn creates a void in the product mix. The impact is that niche oriented products became very very valuable in the eyes of the retailer, and that’s one area where Atelier has reaped the benefit," he stressed.

All of these various dynamics, the carpet manufacturer said, will have a great influence on the introduction of the new mohair carpets.

Like their all-wool line, Sheffield said the mohair line will consist of unique patterns and colors, all of which will be color-coordinated.

"In the past, solid colored cut pile has been the dominant featured product in most of the retail stores," Sheffield told listeners. "There might be 50 different beige color cut piles weighing different amounts. It becomes very confusing to the consumer. One way to counter that is to do something very unusual and unique. We've done that through texture, coloring and patterns, and it’s something that we will continue to do in our mohair offerings."

"We're looking at mohair to do a couple of really important things for us," he continued. "Mohair has a better hand than wool. It’s more comfortable, more livable. It also has a tremendous luster. Construction of the cut loop helps accentuate the luster factor."

For that reason the mohair carpet will be positioned several dollars higher than their wool product, and Atelier feels like their product will easily demand that price. They anticipate the carpet will retail in the $60 a yard range.

Those attending the meeting had the opportunity to handle not only the line of wool carpeting that Atelier manufactures but also some of the initial mohair samples.

"We wanted a very sophisticated look for that high end market," Bray told listeners. "mohair give us that look."

The mohair line is still in developmental stages, but Bray has already named the various carpets that will be available in their first line, using towns in the mohair producing country. There will be products named San Angelo, Kerrville, Uvalde, Fredericksburg and Boerne.

"Your towns are going to be immortalized in carpet all across the country," Bray remarked.

Sheffield walked listeners through a calendar of events, a timeline for getting the mohair carpeting into the market.

For the last couple of months Atelier has worked closely with MCA to develop the correct yarn for the new product.

"Mohair is very dense," Sheffield explained, "which creates some complications at the yarn stage. To alleviate these complications, we've worked with Texas Tech University at the International Center for Textile Research and Development to create a blended yarn that will accomplish two goals. We need the bulk to get good coverage, and secondly, we want to consume as much mohair as possible."

The yarn which seems to hold the most promise, he said, is an 85/15 mohair/New Zealand wool blend. Atelier hopes to have the yarn stage completed by the end of August.

The next step is to develop enough samples to run the finished product through a battery of performance tests.

"The ultimate goal is to make sure we don’t overlook something," Sheffield said. "It’s important to do good performance testing in case we need to make some adjustments."

Cotton Incorporated, he told producers, has spent millions of dollars trying to get cotton incorporated into a carpet on a mass basis.

"This product simply will not hold up in a carpet," Sheffield said.

While the production steps are being carried out, Bray will be working on color, textures and patterns for the mohair line. They anticipate having six initial styles ready for the first run by November.

During this time Bray will also be developing the marketing pieces, samples, accessory pieces and the architecture portfolios that will be shown to prospective customers.

The final sign-off, Sheffield said, before it goes into production will be to take the product into the top three design markets in the U.S. — New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"By the end of the year we should have everything set and ready to go. We’ll then start building inventory to support the sampling. Hopefully we will have that completed by January in time to launch our preview line at Surfaces," Sheffield remarked.

Atelier will work with the top 10 markets in the U.S., primarily in the Northeast and then San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago. Texas, Sheffield said, will be a secondary market, and Atelier hopes that Texans will have a natural interest in a home-grown product.

Atelier has advertised in the past in Veranda, the fastest growing home furnishings magazine in the country. It has a circulation of 350,000. They plan to do a series of ads in the spring 1999 issue, which will focus specifically on their new mohair line.

Both Bray and Sheffield said they were excited about the working relationship with the Mohair Council and mohair producers.

"Mohair producers need Atelier for the marketing, and Atelier needs you for the raw fiber," Sheffield said. "Between the two of us we will be able to create a new market for you and for us.

"We are pioneers in this market," he continued. "This new venture could help establish Atelier as the premier marketing and floor manufacturer."

Dick Pactor with MCA’s New York office brought growers up to date on developments with the Dove Creek Collection. The council is in the process of marketing the initial selections from the newly created apparel collection, products which at present consist primarily of casual sweaters. On a cue from the value-added committee, Pactor and the council focused on the consumption of 31 to 37 micron mohair.

"Six months ago the philosophy was to penetrate the casual market. This is not a sweater collection," Pactor told listeners. "It just so happens that’s the first thing that we have accomplished. As the package grows, we will have a collection of casual things including sweaters, vests, outerwear, socks, etc., all to be promoted and marketed in the U.S. The whole concept is to make salable consumer-accepted products."

Pactor noted that one of the nice things about the sweaters is that they are all machine washable. Order forms for these are now available.

Madeline Daddiego, also with MCA's New York office, has been working on developing hang tags, labels and point of purchase materials at the retail level for the Dove Creek Collection. The new line, she said, will be shown at the upcoming yarn fair.

Daddiego told listeners that the growing home market holds great potential for the mohair industry. She said that it takes longer to develop this market, but added that the positive aspect is that once positioned in the market it’s almost guaranteed that the products will remain for five years. That is quite different, Daddiego noted, from the rapidly changing fashion market.

Zane Willard, executive director of the council, gave an overview of some of the other projects toward which MCA has directed its attention.

MCA this past year teamed up with Graham Johnson, a Mexican manufacturer. The council bought some equipment for his small mill located in Oaxaca, Mexico, to produce mohair yarns. Johnson also manufacturers a line of woven products, including a 100 percent mohair saddle blanket, which uses 12 pounds of grease mohair, and a large inventory of various styles and sizes of Mexican rugs. MCA is working cooperatively to help the Mexican manufacturer move the products.

Two years ago, the council invested $50,000 with Modern Techniques, a carpet manufacturer in Dalton, Georgia, to develop mohair carpeting. Gerald Morrison heads the carpet development division and is working cooperatively with Atelier Carpets as well as with Beverly Murphy Homes.

Murphy developed a 16 by 24-foot display which works off a concept of whole room designs. A computer in the middle of the display allows a customer to design their own room by simply choosing a color. From there the computer matches up color-coordinated wall coverings, upholstery, draperies, carpet, etc. The display will offer merchandise priced at various levels. Murphy’s carpet will be a cut pile texture but it will be a lighter weight and not quite as expensive as Atelier carpet.

Beverly Murphy Homes has contracted with the Lowe’s home improvement center chain to put her display in 84 of their new stores. Though behind schedule, the first store to have the display available was opened within the last week or so, Willard said.

"Over this past year we've tried to eliminate some of the projects that were less beneficial then others and use those dollars in areas that we deemed to be more effective," Willard told listening producers. "Hopefully, by this time next year, we will be able to determine if we are successful with the direction we've chosen."

Allen Stieler with the Texas Mohair Producers Board told growers that 1,925,000 pounds of mohair has been sold from July 1, 1997 through the present. The board collected $72,191 during this period and refunded $13,000. Some money has been granted for a spinning and combing project, but no details were given.

Darrell Keese, wool and mohair buyer with Forte Dupee Sawyer, provided a mohair market update which was dismal at best.

He reported little trading in the adult market, which wasn’t new news to growers.

"There might be a handful of trades at 75 cents," Keese said, "but it probably wouldn’t be enough mohair to even fill up the back of a pickup truck."

He reported some interest in the yearling and young goat market, with prices ranging anywhere from $1.35 to $1.50 up to maybe $2 depending on the style. Fall kid might move at $5, but he stressed that buyers are picky and selective and tight on the grades.