Liven up your home with the planet’s best furnishings

 

Shopping for brand-name home furnishings is as convenient, enjoyable and affordable as can be these days, with a wide selection to suit every taste and personality. A home is not just another house, and conscientious buyers now carefully study the details of form and functionality in what’s available.

Housing developers, interior designers and homeowners can now explore many brand names in high-end furnishings at the Decor Mart Design Centre on trendy Soi Thong Lor 19. The owners bring 19 years of expertise in luxury home-decor retailing to the Thai market.

Five of the top brands – Armani/Dada, Dada, Nautica Home, Kallista and Lefroy Brooks – recently formed a partnership with the Decor Mart as their exclusive dealer, and Versace Home will join them by the end of this year. Meanwhile the latest collections of SieMatic and Binova kitchens and Kaldewei baths have been introduced at the store.

World-renowned fashion brands like Giorgio Armani, Nautica, Versace, Fendi, Ralph Lauren and Kenzo have diversified into home furnishings, a reflection of the market’s growth, especially in the buoyant economy of Asia.

Where furniture is fashion

 

With such diversity in home décor these days, Chic Republic – the first “home fashion” store in Thailand – becomes a solid guide for urbanites who want their dwellings to look as up-to-date as the latest outfits on the fashion runways.

Kijja Pattamasattayasonthi, the president and “Chief Home Fashion Officer” at Chic Republic, tells Elegant Time that their aim is to meet the growing demand in Thailand for more range and modern styling in furnishings and accessories. This is a store where decorators can find fresh inspiration for kitting out new homes or planning a makeover that matches their own personalities.

With more than 10,000 square metres, Chic Republic offers a huge range of ideas – not just in furniture but also appliances, lighting and decorative items – and everything is up to strict European standards.

Europe is the indisputable trendsetter in clothing fashion, art, architecture and homeware, too, and the big trend today is away from the mass-produced furniture that fills houses and apartments but lacks creativity and variety. What many people in Europe now embrace is what’s caught on around the globe – fresh and clever interpretations of sophisticated classics, wonderful vintage gear and retro nostalgia.

Kijja observed the new movement and knew it would work in Thailand as well.

“I decided it was best to have a combination of modern and traditional – what I call Modtrad,” he says.

“Modern furniture dominates the Thai market, but there’s also a certain charm and elegance in the traditional style, like English Classic or American Country. What we do is modernise the traditional in the lines we’ve introduced, such as French Vintage, American Contemporary and Italian Classic, and we’ve been quite successful.”

Modtrad offers solid wood furniture that has all the elegance of bygone eras and yet is perfectly suited to the 21st century – and at reasonable prices. You can buy a comfy sofa lined with duck feathers and premium-quality sponge for Bt10,000 to Bt50,000.

There’s no particle board or other cheap materials. It’s not square-cut, straight off the factory assembly line, but instead shows all the hallmarks of meticulous handcrafting. Most of the furniture at Chic Republic is made from Europe oak, ash and beech and comes from the same companies that create collections for the world’s top brands.

Furniture stores too often settle for just selling “hardware”, as much and as quickly as possible. At Chic Republic they encourage you to take your time choosing and think in terms of “home fashion” and a more pleasurable lifestyle. Furniture, they’ll tell you, ought to be more than merely functional.

Chic Republic is on the Ekamai-Ram Indra Highway, opposite Crystal Park near the Crystal Design Centre.

Find out more at (02) 514 7123 and www.ChicRepublicThai.com.