Vanguard Furniture to Debut its Dune Collection at HPMKT

Furniture World News Desk on 10/15/2019

Vanguard’ Furniture recently announced that their Dune Collection will Debut at High Point Market. The Dune collection features classic, comfortable silhouettes crafted with bleached American Black Walnut veneers highlighted with weathered finishes that feel comfortable and familiar. Casually elegant details such as White Bronze metal hardware and ferrules and Lampacanay and Abacá woven accents add a layer of visual and physical texturing.
 
Because every piece can be customized in a myriad of ways, the Dune collection consists of a bed, 3 dresser and 3 chest configurations, 6 nightstands a mirror and a console table. The silhouettes are rectilinear in shape, providing a casual and contemporary feel. But this can be misleading— because depending on how the case is finished, it can go from casual to formal with equal amounts of sophistication. Cases feature unique face options. The weaves are wrapped around drawer faces to provide natural texture, dimension, and the tactile feeling only organic materials can. There are also options for hardware. One can chose an Abacá wrapped version that provides textural coarseness and blends monolithically with the case, or white bronze, which provides a cool contrast.

Andy Bray, Vanguard’s president explained, “Our strategy is conceptually simple, yet operationally complex. Our design philosophy is collaborative. Furniture that you live with every day can be the ultimate form of self-expression. No one has a monopoly on great design. It is personal and subjective. We allow the end consumer and the professional interior designer to create their own case from the palette of materials we provide. I never cease to be amazed by the creativity and design chops of our customers. Their creations are stunningly beautiful.

At first glance, a couple of things seem odd. When asked, why Vanguard would bleach the natural chocolatey color of American Black Walnut, Bray replied, “I understand what you are asking, and the answer is artisanal. At Vanguard, we offer the unexpected. In my opinion, the best feature of the walnut species is its glorious grain. Walnut has the unusual characteristic of absorbing stain differently in the sapwood and the heartwood yielding a variegated outline that reflects light in a way that accentuates the grain pattern. Because the hallmark of our company is customization, bleaching it first provides a blank canvas for nearly any color you can imagine".

Vanguard has developed 7 new finishes designed to work especially well with bleached walnut, each of which provides a different lifestyle look.

Sugar Coat – is a pure, dry, light silver, almost white finish.

Baltic – is textured grey color, with a weathered and worn look, redolent of a wood wind- swept by ocean air and saltwater
Sun-washed – features white dry cerusing. Cerusing is a centuries-old liming technique that subtlety draws out the detail and character of the grain. It yields a very natural sun dappled and weathered look.

State of Grace – is a shimmery silver that highlights the magnificent natural cathedrals of walnut.

Cavallo – is a clear, chocolate brown finish that enhances the American Black Walnut veneer.

French Cuff – is the most formal of the finishes, offering a rich, sultry dark charcoal, finish.

Italian Walnut – a clear walnut stain, inspired by Italian finishes discovered at Salone de Mobile in Milan.

When asked if Abacá and Lampacanay were new materials, Bray chuckled and provided a 16th century history lesson. “Emphatically no. Europeans came into contact with abacá fiber when Magellan made land in the Philippines in 1521. By 1897, the Philippines exported almost 100,000 tons of abacá, and it was one of the three biggest cash crops, along with tobacco and sugar.
 
Lampcanay, which complements the weave is a seagrass weed native to the Philippines. Its long and narrow leaves blend nicely with the abacá. Both are indigenous to the Philippines, are abundant, renewable and have often been used in furniture and basketmaking… but no one has done it precisely like we have.”

When asked what else Vanguard was introducing this market, Bray replied, “We are introducing more new product than at any time in our history. The primary reason people come to market is to see new things and Vanguard will not disappoint. In addition to new introductions in our Michael Weiss and Thom Filicia Collections—with whom we are celebrating our tenth anniversary—we have new offerings in our highly successful MIY line including new desks and vanities. We have some cool new cocktail tables in cast stone, gilded cubes, and unique lantern shaped bunching tables that nest in a fractal pattern. There is a very unusual spiral cocktail table that defies gravity by using cantilevered slabs. We've experimented with sophisticated mesh rattan and wall beds. And our new upholstery offerings may be our best ever, experimenting with new shapes, original sectional configurations and an exciting new sleeper. We are adding 128 new fabrics and leathers bringing our total offering to more than 1500, 650 of which are performance fabrics. When you consider the fact that everything in our line is customizable in in a myriad of ways, the offerings are infinite.

He concluded by saying, “It has always been our goal to make the Vanguard showroom the Disneyland of High Point. This year, as we celebrate our 50th anniversary, we pulled out all the stops. We are bigger, better and more innovative than ever. It is the one place that you cannot miss because it is such an exciting assault on the senses, and after all, isn’t that the reason people come to Highpoint?”