MOUSCRON, Belgium —Depoortere upholstery velvets has joined the High Five marketing group as of January, 2012, according to Luc Callens, marketing director. 

In fact, High Five becomes ‘High Six’ with the addition of Depoortere. The other five members in the Group are: Algemene, Bruvatex, Decoviz, Penelope and Vilber.

About 18 months ago, after a long and checkered past in and out of bankruptcy Depoortere upholstery received new life as a division of Depoortere Group which includes woven carpets and Depoortere Deco, a maker of finished pillows.Under the new ownership, Depoortere commercial director Christof Vermeersch is working closely with commercial manager Marnix Ghesquire who is heading all commercial activities. Marnix has over 30 years experience in business in general and plain velvets in particular. It took six months to buy the old Depoortere equipment and hire some of the previous workers back, Callens explained.

Jean-Pierre Vanbostal, Marnix Ghesquiere and Christof Vermeersch“Depoortere production  has always concentrated on 100 % plain polyester velvets and this continues under a new marketing umbrella with High Five Textiles,” according to Callens. “Now Depoortere can focus on quality, creativity and cusotmer service,” he explained.

“All developed qualities have very high rubtest results of 100,000 Martindale and more resulting in heavy duty/hard wearing fabrics,” he said. “All qualities are washable and easy to clean; all production steps are done in-house so perfect quality control is guaranteed,” he emphasized.

“Price level is not the main issue as it was before; development of unique natural looks like cotton look, viscose look, linen looks, mohair look are succesfully achieved under the new product development manager Jean Pierre Vanbostal and possible because of their own dying and finishing facilities,” Callens pointed out.

Callens further stated that minimum orders are as low as 50 meters per color from a standard  range of 36 colors/quality and custommade colors are possible with a  minimum of 160-240 meters depending on the quality. Callens quoted delivery of four to six weeks. 

“There are no real stock programs but you could call the standard color range a quick ship program,” Callens said. He also said the new marketing approach for Depoortere and the new collections are “fitting wonderfully together with the sales policy of the High Five Textile mills.  The product was very complementary with the existing fabric lines; a win-win opportunity was born.”

Since January, all five High Five sales agents started selling the new Depoortere line to residential and contract jobbers and furniture manufacturers. Early results show an interest from High-end manufacturers in the USA including Baker Furniture, Lee Industries and Emerson, Callens pointed out The USA customer service as well as the warehousing facilities are based in Chicago.

Depoortere is showing its newest collections during Proposte in Como May 8-10 in Albergo Giardino on Via Regina 73 in Cernobbio.  

Further showings are planned at Showime in High Point June 3-6 in the showroom of the High Five Textiles Group, Textile Tower Market Square, second floor.

Depoortere also participates at MoOD Brussels in September.  F&FI