
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 3, 1990                   TAG: 9006040359
SECTION: HOMES                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Aimee Cunningham
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE NATURAL LOOK SELLS

THE San Francisco earthquake had buyers shaken up last fall at the International Home Furnishings Market. This spring, it was Earth Day that was on the minds of sellers and shoppers alike at the semi-annual market in High Point, N.C.

Land abuse, particularly tropical rain forest destruction, was a sensitive issue that apparently swayed buying decisions.

"What kind of wood is that?" asked an interior designer, eyeing an exotic mahogany veneer in a fancy showroom. "Where did it come from?"

"It's not from Brazil," the sales rep shot back. "It's from the Philippines."

The Hardwood Manufacturers Association held a news conference to dissuade any notions that it was recklessly chopping down every stick of wood in the United States' 728 million acres of forestland. There were rumblings that Earth First, a radical environmental group, might picket the market. But its members never showed.

"We have 20 percent more trees in this country today than we had on the first Earth Day 20 years ago, and we have 70 percent more hardwood trees than we had 35 years ago," Robert W. Slocum, vice president of the North Carolina Forestry Association, said.

Politics aside, the implication was clear: nature sells.

"People are accepting things in their natural state," said designer John Mascheroni, as he extolled the merits of a cocktail table topped with naked travertine marble. "I think people respond to that. You can get much more emotion from a piece of real material than you can from something machine made."

A revival of feel-good fabrics such as ultrasuede and cotton chenille is part of the perceived public need for coddling. Swaim, a high-end contemporary company, used chenille to cover a few voluptuous sectionals and chairs.

"It's like your security blanket," said Mascheroni, Swaim's designer. "There's a great deal of apprehension as we move into the 21st century."

At the same time, opulence, a high-falutin fashion holdover from the Reagan administration, is being replaced by tightly designed, functional furnishings. A trend toward classicism that was sparked a few years ago by neoclassical styles - pediments, pilasters and columns - has moved into pared-down, architecturally inspired furnishings. It's reassuringly traditional but less fussy.

by CNB