BESPOKE
M AR Y N I CHO L S BALDWIN HARDWARE
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BALDWIN HARDWARE IS THE AMERICAN DREAM COME TRUE—AT LEAST, IT IS FOR SEVERIN FAYERMAN, A WWII SURVIVOR AND REFUGEE WHO ESTABLISHED THE COMPANY IN 1946. IT HAS SINCE SET THE BAR FOR STYLE, QUALITY AND DURABILITY, WITH SEVERAL OF ITS LINES STILL BEING MADE IN ITS READING, PENNSYLVANIA, FACTORY, WHERE THE PRIDE IN THE AIR IS PALPABLE, SAYS SENIOR PRODUCT MANAGER MARY NICHOLS.
There’s a tremendous amount of pride in the craftsmanship and quality of the product line. You can sense it throughout the entire facility. The average tenure of our labor force in
Reading is probably 30 years, where sons and fathers work side by side. When we are the ones bringing a concept from cradle to grave—in the fact that we have the designers here and the engineers in the factory— it brings the whole story together. It’s important that we control from concept all the way through to when the consumer gets it on their door. The amount of man-hours that go into the Archetypes line, for example, is astronomical as opposed to a fully automated factory. It’s anywhere from 15 to 20 artisans physically working on the product after concept, so every order has 15 to 20 people touching it along the way. Baldwin is an investment. We’re not the cheapest hardware brand, nor will we ever be. We want to make sure that people’s expectations are exceeded when they choose to invest in us.
Left: In Baldwin Hardware’s Reading, Pennsylvania, factory, upward of 20 artisans lay their hands on each product, from hand-polishing to hand-plating, such as in the Couture Collection (shown here). baldwinhardware.com
L AU RE N P E LU SI O DURALEE
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HEADQUARTERED IN BAY SHORE, NEW YORK, TEXTILE COMPANY DURALEE HAS GROWN LEAPS AND BOUNDS SINCE ITS START IN 1952, ADDING SEVERAL LINES AND A FURNITURE DIVISION TO ITS OFFERINGS. BUT, ACCORDING TO SENIOR STYLIST LAUREN PELUSIO OF THE DURALEE FABRICS DESIGN STUDIO, SOME THINGS HAVEN’T CHANGED, INCLUDING ITS FAMILYRUN STATUS AND ITS SUPPORT OF U.S. MILLS FOR SELECT COLLECTIONS.
As a hands-on, family-operated business, we can be nimble to trends and change directions as we see fit. We don’t have to answer to a
plan that is developed years ahead and can react when necessary. We buy a lot from domestic mills. We always go to them first. It’s a long-term partnership with the mill, and they can get us products faster than other countries. In our company, you can be a customer with a small problem or a big one, and your issue might wind up on the president’s desk. We are in touch with our consumers at the very highest level. We can make changes at the drop of a dime if we deem them necessary. What most interior designers are interested in are things that they don’t find everywhere else. So that’s the true key to the craftsmanship: where the mills are constantly coming up with new things that we have not seen before.
Right: Duralee’s Wainwright Collection (patterns from its Azalea/Cranberry color book are shown here) is fully made in the United States and partially contains post-consumer and post-industrial recycled content. duralee.com