OCTOBER 1990 our debut collection was first seen at the Home Textile show at the Hotel Pennsylvania in NYC. The black/white pattern is called NATURE.
We got 3 customers! ABC carpet, ADHOC (best store ever, it unfortunately closed) and Stroud's, a chain from California. Not a bad start. The fabrics were screen printed in South Carolina and the cotton fabric was from Switzerland (really). The first catalogue (above left) was silk screened by hand by Anki and the AREA logo designer Bridget de Socio in New York City's East Village. The strong logo very much inspired others and got many admirers.
NATURE & PALETTE in House Beautiful, 1991. Above, center, are Area's co-founders Martin Kace and Anki Spets, from LDB Interior Textiles magazine, 1992. Anki looks 12 and could have gotten work as an elf.
Both room images were the pictures used for packaging. The large-scale, bold abstract designs quickly garnered attention and perfectly fit the AREA idea to fill areas of the home with something great.
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