Elite Leather Enters The Comfort Zone

Furniture World Magazine

Los Angeles-based Elite Leather (www.eliteleather.com), a 45-year-old, family-owned leather manufacturer, introduces 8 new styles to its extensive line at the October High Point Furniture Market.  Most of the new styles fall into the contemporary category; these are joined by a few new traditional and motion frames as well.  Elite is also showcasing new leather colors such as lipstick, coffee bean and autumnal shades of green and brown.  Seating Trends New details to look for this Market from Elite Leather include small-scale sofas and modular sectionals, ideal for the apartment lifestyle, bachelor pad or modest-sized office space.  This scaled-down look is embraced in Elite’s transitional and contemporary lines (sofas, chairs and sectionals), as well as in a new home theater chair.  In addition to more intimately scaled pieces, several shape trends include roll-arm and tuxedo-style silhouettes (when the arm and back of the sofa are at the same level). Other finish details like pewter nail heads and dark-stained wooden bases, illustrate the season’s focus on refined elegance.  Inspired by its best-selling Century City model from the contemporary line, Elite offers a new sectional with removable back cushions that afford additional room.   This tufted piece is deeper than normal and boasts a European-style firm feel.  It has a coffee bean-colored wooden base and makes for a perfect family room piece.  Home Entertaining Enters a New Level Home theaters have re-emerged as hot news on the design front.  This season, Elite offers a fashionable new must-have for the screening room.  The “Galaxy” chair has zero-wall technology and may employ a ground-breaking sub woofer speaker system, which allows the chair to react and shake during appropriate moment of a favorite film.  The slender chair boasts a tall back and low, curved arms with a stainless steel cup holder.  The back and seat have soft futuristic quilts that contour to the body.  Two styles are available in this chair:  one with a moveable headrest, and one without. “A good movie to watch in the new home theater chaise is the movie Pearl Harbor,” explains Elite CEO Michael A. Galardo.  “We put the DVD in and connected the surround sound to our chair and it was quite a ride during those war sequences.  It takes you to a whole new level in terms of home entertainment.” The Elite Leather home theater, one of the company’s stand-out Motion pieces, has found its way into the homes of some of Hollywood’s elite, including actors Zach Braff, Andy McDowell, Alison Janney, Jane Leeves, Marcia Gay Harden, Meryl Streep and Sean Astin, to name a few. In addition to chairs and sofas, the Elite Leather showroom showcases tufted leather beds and screens, ottomans, benches and accessories. Price ranges for Elite Leather include:  Sofas: $1,800 - $3,000; Sectionals: $4,000- $8,000; Chairs: $1,200 - $2,000; Motion Collection: $1,200 - $4,000; and Leather Beds: $1,000 - $3,000. The new collections illustrate Elite Leather’s commitment to quality and to evolving its collections to please changing consumer tastes.  Today, sleek, sophisticated silhouettes are very popular, hence the growth of Elite’s contemporary line.  In addition, as Motion pieces have become increasingly refined, they are becoming a living room staple, even for design-conscious customers.