HSN lines up name designers for 48-hour event
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OK, so his tie appears to be an Hermès scarf. Carleton Varney, you’re forgiven. The cuckoo-for-color interior designer and president of Dorothy Draper & Co. is one of several key players giving the 33-year-old Home Shopping Network a fresh identity as HSN.
On Monday and Tuesday, Varney will be a part of HSN’s first Home Design Event. His Live Vividly collection is ‘inspired by the classics with an added punch,’ he says.
The programming also include presentations of kitchenware and accessories from chef Wolfgang Puck and entertaining guru Colin Cowie, as well as rugs by Andrea Starck.
Recently minted talk show host Nate Berkus will be on hand with new products he has designed. Among them: an intriguing knit-cotton pillow, right, trimmed with the kind of toggle closures found on stadium coats. It’s 18 inches square, and with a poly-fill insert it costs $34.95.
Designer Hutton Wilkinson,the president of Tony Duquette Inc., will premiere new luxury linens. He has two faux-fur throws, including the 50-by-70-inch ruched throw, below right, $59.95.
An exclusive-for-HSN line called Happy Chic by Jonathan Adler also will make its debut.
‘Not everyone is an expert in design, but they know what they like,’ says Lynne Ronon, HSN executive vice president for merchandising and planning. ‘They need help to put it together, and our designers will talk about their inspiration and how to put the look together. It’s all presented in a lifestyle environment so the customer can see the entire vision. And it’s live TV, so anything can happen.’
HSN designers will contribute blogs to the website.
‘There are certainly some antiquated stereotypes about HSN,’ says Bill Brand, executive vice president of programming, marketing and business development. ‘We’ve put a stake in the ground in terms of bringing in the right designers.’
The channel once known for glitzy gifts could not have found a more enthusiastic participant than Adler. ‘Wake up an smell the Sanka,’ he says. ‘Anyone who thinks HSN is just boxed jewelry and bedazzled muumuus is playing old tapes from the last century. HSN is groovy.’
Keep reading to see what Adler is bringing to the party ...
HSN will introduce the Happy Chic by Jonathan Adler collection’s two porcelain Pop canister sets, each $39.95: Calories and Candy, and Carbs and Caffeine.
-- David A. Keeps
Photo credits: HSN