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Furniture with Integrity
The whole world is in a state of upheaval, as markets crash and credit crunches, pundits expound theories and point fingers - but at the core, at the very center of this tremendous surge of uncertainty is the question of 'integrity'. Clearly the leaders of our financial institutions were too busy counting their profit to consider their actions - it was the absence of integrity that sucked our financial markets down into this abyss. It was an absence of political integrity that created the this huge deficit, and an absence of consumer integrity that caused so many people to borrow far beyond their means. Basically no one was paying attention to uncomfortable or inconvenient truths.
What does all of this have to do with furniture, I hear you ask?
With integrity so much in question, there is a growing demand for it now. As people re evaluate their financial circumstances, many of them face a new reality. Shaken to the core they are filtering through the information and realizing that to survive in this environment they must have tremendous integrity in their decision making and they must demand integrity from their service providers, suppliers and politicians. This is a new paradigm for everyone in every industry, and furniture is no exception.
In the coming months and even perhaps years, i expect that we will see furniture buyers searching for products and suppliers with integrity.
Of course we know only too well that the search for integrity is very subjective, fraught with the dangers of misinformation and mis leading sales talk - and our audience is beginning to understand that danger. Tired of being 'marketed at', suspicious of empty promises, they are no longer 'fooled by evidence' (or at least less so)
Buyers are seeking to find integrity within their buying decisions - taking more care to make the right purchase, and taking longer to do so. More in the style of the continental European buyer. They are hungry for credibility as they seek to evaluate messages. They are looking for links and associations with credible third parties. They are drawn to 'green' / 'environmentally friendly' products and corporate philosophies. Seeking authentic craftsmanship, They are looking for authenticity.
The solid predictability of proven relationships, solid wood, solid anything is pretty attractive. However as our 'solid brick and mortar furniture stores' continue to decline, customers are already turning to e-commerce furniture stores. In the absence of the tactile reassurances of physical product, online retailers are striving to simulate that same wealth of sensory input, that people feel that they need - when making its careful buying decisions.
Of course integrity is not just about craftsmanship, corporate philosophy or service, its also about design.
Good art, good design comes from inspiration - from somewhere beyond profit motive, scarcity, and sales projections. At its best it is unsullied by small, everyday human considerations, it is the very essence of integrity. As physical evidence of that uncompromising clarity we all love to own a piece of it, to live with an object that represents that way of being. Its a way of vicariously associating with these exulted states, perhaps inspiring us to look for and create integrity elsewhere in our lives.
