FROM SHAVER/MELAHN CLASSICS TO THE PRESENT
In any discipline there's a learning curve and an evolution of constant change and reinvention. Our furniture design has not been an exception to this rule. Rick started out as the primary designer launching our first Shaver/Melahn line at ICFF in 1998.
It began with a series of side and cocktail tables all named after our daughter.
The Emmy line came naked or dressed in skirts of various lengths: mini, knee-high and maxi.
The skirts were the marketing devise that got the line noticed by the high end furniture industry.
Quickly the line expanded into casegoods, lamps, beds and metal trolleys and trays. The line was quickly picked up by a half-dozen showrooms and it was at this point that we realized there was a whole lot that had to be addressed beyond the design and marketing.
We continued on this path for as long as we could before we realized we needed to change.
The next phase in our furniture design's development was adding licensing through a PR rep. This attracted some major players the size of Crate&Barrel. The problem with the major players was the percentage return on sales of work containing our name. It was so small it wasn't worth the effort, but we finally decided on Crescent Fine Furniture and developed a line for them under the name Crossings.
Always evolving we moved to creating more lines to complement the Shaver/Melahn Classics:
some with success like our Mendota Collection,
others only making it to the conceptual stage
and some that were just plain failures. We did learn the lesson of you can some times learn more from your failures than from your successes.
We're still developing new lines and adding pieces to our existing lines
but we've now evolved into selling direct to clients and doing custom work within our projects.
And now the evolution continues and the sketching of new ideas doesn't seem to lose its ability to imagine with age. It only gets better.
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