Hot product: Garden gnomes - Brief Article

Home Channel News, Oct 8, 2001

Garden gnomes, those little red-capped elfin statues, are making a comeback. The latest pop culture icon has appeared in the pages of House & Garden magazine, on the cover of Restoration Hardware's catalog, and in an ad campaign for Toyota. Several vendors at the National Hardware Show in August featured garden gnomes in their booths. Don't be surprised if you see them soon on Antiques Roadshow, hauled in by homeowners who dug them out of the underbrush.

Garden gnomes have always been popular in Europe, especially in Germany and the United Kingdom. A shadowy group in France called the Garden Gnome Liberation Front has been stealing the little yard statues -- and getting arrested for it -- since the mid-1990s. In the United States, some observers trace the gnomic renaissance to "The Full Monty," a popular British film that used garden gnomes as a running joke. Others credit the retro kitsch cycle that brought back pink flamingoes and Crazy Eight balls.

Gardena, Calif.-based specialty dealer Armstrong Garden Centers is expecting its gnome order to arrive this month. Giftware buyer Tom Boschma traced consumer interest to what he calls "the groundswell of interest in magic and myth." Armstrong will be carrying "true gnomes," which have red conical hats that stick straight up, according to Boschma. Distributed by Just Pottery of Danville, Calif., the statuettes are made by a Dutch firm with ties to the illustrator of "Gnomes," a book published in 1977 and credited with starting the gnome craze.

Although gnome purists may call them "dwarfs," there are scores of gnome-like creatures on the market. Some are cheap knockoffs made from plastic resin. Others are hand-painted concrete models. Al's Garden Art in Colton, Calif., a 52-year-old fountain and statue manufacturer, has been making garden gnomes for years. "We've seen sales jump lately," said director of marketing Allen Martindale. Al's Garden Art has increased its production for the fall, Martindale said. The company will also release three new gnomes made from concrete with an antique stain.

Where the trend goes from here is anybody's guess. Consumers have fallen out of love with gnomes before. Randy Atrat, statuary buyer for Waiter Andersen Nursery in San Diego, worked for garden center chain Nurseryland during the gnome fad of the late 1980s. "After they lost populariry, they sat around in the store for awhile and started getting ugly. We had to almost give them away," he recalled.

Doris Williams, a buyer for Merrifield Garden Center in the Washington, D.C. area, is noticing more gnomes at the buying shows she attends. Williams admits that she's not overly fond of the elfin creatures and their cute poses. Until her customers start clamoring for them, Williams is holding back on any big orders. "It's not a plunge I want to take right now," she said.