Retailers attending the market also have the opportunity to “Cover New Ground” with an AmericasMart Atlanta program designed to enhance their market experience through an array of Area Rug Center special events and festivities. These include market breakfasts, buffets, cocktails, and champagne receptions for buyers to mingle and collect valuable business information. The 2003 Rug Retailer of the Year Awards, scheduled from 5:30 to 8 p.m. on July 14, will feature a gala awards reception and casino-themed activities. To obtain a complete listing of events, telephone (800) ATL-MART or visit www.AmericasMart.com on the Internet.
The following are just a handful of the many collections that will take the spotlight at AmericasMart.
Balta will add the color black to its Luxus Collection, which is made from 100 percent heat-set olefin. This million-point collection encompasses 10 designs intended to exemplify traditional elegance. Each rug is made with luxury in mind and is incredibly soft to the touch, according to Balta. Using burgundies, ivories and silver, Luxus is meant to offer the look of wool at olefin price points.
Feizy will debut its Rutherford Collection of hand-tufted rugs featuring traditional floral Persian designs executed in a palette of wool and art silk. The suggested retail price for a 5'-by-8' rug is $690. The Malibu Collection, another hand-tufted collection from Feizy, offers rugs in contemporary style with a tone-on-tone palette. The collection’s natural wool coloration is intended to resemble the luxury of contemporary Tibetan designs. Suggested retail for a 5'-by-8' rug is $250.
Kalaty Rug Corp., a Wools of New Zealand partner, will showcase a new retail display at the July market that takes up only 21/2 square feet of space. The rack system holds 25 18-by-24-inch corner samples, and comes with a binder catalogue that contains full, four-color images of each pattern. The workable samples are intended to be easy to mix and match as a means of showing a variety of possibilities to buyers who are contemplating multiple rug purchases.
Radici USA, maker of Italian rugs and carpets, will introduce a new series of classic favorites with Moghul. These Wools of New Zealand-branded rugs are made from a blend of space-dyed and carded-wool yarns in a mix of Heriz, Oushak and Bakhtiari designs. The collection is composed of four fringeless patterns, each offered in colorways of black, red and ivory with accents of charcoal gray, vineyard olive, brassy gold, and Oxford blue. Sizes available include 3'3" by 4'11", 5'5" by 7'11", 7'9" by 11'2" and 2'2" by 7'7".