DECORATING Showing the softer side of carpeting

Other trends in flooring include patterned carpet and casual themes.
By MOLLY MILLETT
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The carpet industry has gone soft -- but that's a positive development for American homes.
"The new nylons that are very silky in touch have taken off like gangbusters," says John Marr, vice president of marketing for Minnesota-based Carpet King.
In fact, these new "soft" carpets are the hottest trend in carpet today, reinvigorating the flooring that was overshadowed in the 1990s with alternatives such as laminates and ceramic tile.
"At a national trade show for the industry earlier this year, about 85 percent of the carpet products introduced were the new soft fibers," says Matthew Spieler, managing editor of the New-York based Floor Covering News. "The industry tried soft fibers many years ago. They were great and cushiony and you wanted to sleep on them, but they were not durable. Now, technological advances have made them possible. They are soft and velvety, but durable. They stand up to traffic, and when you get up from lying down on them, your body image is not still there."
The soft fibers include Shaw's EverTouch, Mohawk's Liss and DuPont's Tactesse. Soft-carpet prices start around $19.99 a yard and can reach about $40 a yard, with an average price of about $27.99 a yard, according to Carpet King.
Popular alternatives
The soft fibers came along at a good time for the industry. Carpet has been struggling with an identity crisis in the last several years because of the huge popularity of alternative flooring choices -- especially laminates, such as Pergo. Laminate flooring is a material that resembles hardwood, stone or tile. In today's busy world, consumers like laminates because they are less costly than the real thing and never need polishing, waxing or refinishing.
"We are seeing more growth in the ceramic and hardwood and laminate flooring, which has been a trend over the last five or six years," says Julius Shaw, executive vice president of Georgia-based Shaw Industries, which manufactures carpet and hard surfaces. "Carpet and rugs are still by far the largest single flooring category, but they're growing at a slower rate than others."
The shifting popularity in floor coverings is apparent when studying new homes today, Marr says.
"Carpet is still the No. 1 choice, but it definitely has been attacked from all sides," Marr says. "If you go to a model house, you don't see a lot of carpet on the main floor. The public areas -- the living room, den, kitchen and dining room -- often have hard surfaces. But people often do want carpet in the bedroom, and in the lower level."
In this new age, carpet manufacturers have had to get creative when it comes to marketing. Lately, they've been turning to designer names such as Laura Ashley and Liz Claiborne to boost carpet's profile. After all, if consumers are asked to give the brand name of a soft drink or car, they can easily do so. But that has not been so with carpet, says Kate Maselis, vice president of marketing for Beaulieu of America, a carpet manufacturer that distributes Laura Ashley and Waverly carpets. Yet if you know and like the name, says Maselis, "you will trust that brand."
Of course, that approach can backfire. Shaw joined forces with Martha Stewart, the domestic diva who is now under fire over insider-trading allegations.
Other trends
Besides soft fibers and designer names, hot trends in the style of carpet today include Saxony, a plush-looking, luxurious carpet, and Frieze, sometimes called the new shag. Frieze styles are typically longer than the nubby, low-maintenance Berber that hit big in the 1990s and is still popular in many markets.
"You could almost call it a return to the shag, but better," Marr says. "It's not as long as your mother's shag, but two times as long as what we've been selling. The fibers are very tightly twisted, so the yarn doesn't mat as much as the old shags. It's a very popular texture."
"It's a casual look," says Vickie Gilstrap, director of color and design for Georgia-based Mohawk Industries, "and we think it's doing so well because the casual look is so big right now."
Gilstrap says that besides seeking the casual theme, Americans have become more adventurous when it comes to carpeting their homes.
"A big trend is more patterned products," says Gilstrap. "People want to personalize their homes, not have it look just like their neighbor's home, and patterns are a form of self-expression.
"We find that consumers are generally more savvy as far as decorating now," Gilstrap says.
"With magazines, the Internet and the media, people are learning a lot more about decorating."