Holiday tableware presents whole packages - Home Market Trends

Discount Store News, Feb 19, 1996 by Teresa Andreoli

Holiday-patterned coordinated looks have forged way beyond the matching dish and mug set.

This year's slew of partnerships between textile, dinnerware, toy and even music CD makers have given retailers more reasons to cross-merchandise product.

As "collectibility" and "giftware" trends grow among consumers of decorated home goods, more manufacturers have pumped up production of line extensions and licensed goods.

For example, Pfaltzgraff, York, Pa., has licensed several of its holiday patterns for use on tabletop and kitchen accessories, paper party goods (Dun), Milwaukee), dinnerware (Selandia, Santa Clarita, Calif.) and tea kettles (Reston Lloyd, Reston, Va.), and will shortly announce its agreement with a CD music publisher.

Cecil Saydah will unveil its new Pfaltzgraff-licensed line of Holly Joy towels, oven mitts, pot holders and rugs. Mauve and traditional green dominate the pattern, but marketing manager Karin O'Callaghan said that the pattern has the all-important quality of stretching beyond the holidays. "It has a holiday feel, but it's something customers will perceive as a winter pattern, not solely a Christmas pattern."

Similarly, Ex-Cell will add to its Pfaltzgraff licenses a woven place mat and tablecloth to match Pfaltzgraff's Studio Bands line.

Ex-Cell has produced a plaid pattern to match the dual holiday-color bands that stripe the edges of Pfaltzgraff dishes and bowls. Last market, Ex-Cell introduced vinyl coordinated tabletop looks for Pfaltzgraff's Christmas Heritage collection.

The Pfaltzgraff CD, "one of the most interesting of our licensing agreements," said manager of licensing Judy Bono, had not been finalized at press time. Pfaltzgraff plans to package its name and each respective dinnerware pattern name on several instrumental music CDs.

Pamida bulked up its Christmas tabletop displays for Holiday '95 from one table of single-color table-cloths to three endcaps and three tables of holiday ware. The company plans to repeat the major statement for Christmas '96, said Richard Tidwell, vice president, divisional merchandise manager.

A recent pre-Valentine display at a Kmart in Westbury, N.Y., exemplified cross-merchandising. A blue sponge-look heart design dinner dish from the Tienshan Folk Craft line, was set upon a coordinated place mat from Park B. Davis.

Tienshan intends to make a big splash with its Folk Craft holiday design, Winter Wonderland, which got limited placement at Fremont, Calif.-based Home Express.

It will also launch a 12-piece collection of Save the Children dinnerware, with images designed by children. Ten percent of wholesale costs will be donated to the Save the Children Federation.

Traditional (including folk art designs, Christmas trees, plaids and paisleys) contemporary (three-dimensional ornamentation) and whimsical (snowmen and gingerbread men) holiday patterns are trending hot for Zak.