Remember Naugahyde? In the late 1960s, manufacturers of car seats to sofas helped turn Uniroyal’s imitation leather into a household name. Today, a Pawtucket textile maker is counting on consumers to create demand for a very different kind of upholstery.
Infinesse by Microfibres, Inc. is a line of exceptionally soft yet sturdy velvet fabric used in the manufacture of high-end furniture. Starting in January, furniture covered in the upholstery will come with a five-year warranty from DuPont, which supplies the fine nylon fibers used in the fabric’s pile.
Microfibres introduced Infinesse last month at the International Furnishings Market in High Point, North Carolina. At the same time, it announced a gift of $52,000 to the Providence chapter of Habitat for Humanity for the rehabilitation of a house in Olneyville in conjunction with Oprah Winfrey’s Angel Network.
“One of the values here is to give back to the community.” Habitat for Humanity was an opportunity to do that “and also promote our new brand name. It just seemed to make a lot of sense,” said Jim Fulks, Microfibres’ executive vice president.
Microfibres spent about a year developing the Infinesse brand composed of 25 patterns and counting. The company plans to introduce about 100 more each year, said Jim McCulloch, third-generation president and chief executive officer of Microfibres. The initial branding effort included “a couple hundred thousand” dollars spent on focus groups and surveys to identify the fabric’s audience — mostly women with an annual income between $100,000 and $150,000 — and to determine what they wanted in an upholstery, McCulloch said.
“Softness, aesthetics, looks. Those were a given. But the other most important quality was wear,” he said. The line of stain-resistant, washed velvets was developed with families in mind, so that “virtually all spills” come out with soap and water, McCulloch said. “Usually hand (texture) and durability are opposites in furniture.”
The process by which Microfibres makes the Infinesse line is nothing new. The company has been supplying textile mills and plastic manufacturers with flock — natural or synthetic fibers applied to coated surfaces — since 1926. It formed an upholstery division in 1981 and began designing and selling velvet to furniture makers.
The company has been “trading up” ever since, McCulloch said, adding that the last five years have been a push for “better-end” products. Today, “all the majors” from Broyhill to La-Z-Boy include Microfibres fabrics in their furniture lines, he said. Microfibres’ made the first of its products in the Infinesse line about two and half years ago, before the brand even existed. Its enormous popularity led to other creations. Recent styles mimic suede and mohair in look and feel.
The Infinesse name “codifies what they’re doing and brands it,” said John Woodhouse of Providence’s Trainor Associates, which handles local publicity for Microfibres.
Microfibres has the equivalent of 186 full-time employees at its Pawtucket headquarters and 1,000 employees worldwide. The company recently acquired the former Narragansett Wire building next door on Moshassuck Street where it plans to install a third flocking machine and create a distribution center. The company has plants in North Carolina, Georgia, Canada and Belgium.
Sales of Infinesse products are expected to increase 100 percent a year for the next three years, McCulloch said, adding they are “pretty aggressive sales goals.” To that end, Microfibres has spent about $2-million on advertising and public relations to promote its new line. The publicity campaign includes about 3,000 training kits to be distributed to furniture retailers. Ads created by Stoner Bunting Advertising of Lancaster, Penn., are scheduled to appear in February issues of major home magazines.
