Fashion4Home Adds Fashion Executive Ralf Handschuch as Creative Director; Award-Winning Designer Reinhard Dienes Debuts Whimsical, Eco-Friendly Line of Cardboard Home Furniture
BERLIN--(Marketwire - February 17, 2010) - Fashion4Home, Inc., the first
online-only furniture retailer in the US to offer high-end modern furniture at 50-70% less
than traditional retail prices, today announced the addition of Ralf
Handschuch to its team as well as an exclusive line of eco-friendly
cardboard furniture from award-winning international designer Reinhard
Dienes. Handschuch will join as creative director, effective immediately
and the new exclusive line from Dienes is available for purchase at
www.fashion4home.com as of today. Fashion4Home.com is a wholly-owned
subsidiary of the German company of the same name, which launched in Europe
in November 2009.
As creative director, Ralf Handschuch will be responsible for recruiting
designers and shaping the creative vision of the Fashion4Home brand and
product assortment. His experience spans both the business and design sides
of the fashion industry, having been trained in furniture design but
spending most of his time in the apparel industry. He most recently served
as a board member at Austrian lingerie company Palmers, where he was
responsible for product and marketing strategy. Handschuch founded the
fashion label Ralf Handschuch Berlin in 1990, distributed in the US through
Barneys New York, Bergdorf Goodman and Traffic, and he was a partner at
fashion label Thome Schulz. He worked as the fashion director of
international fashion and cosmetics company JOOP! and founded Wallstreet
One Gallery in Berlin. Handschuch is also an advisor to a number of
lifestyle brands.
Reinhard Dienes is partnering with Fashion4Home on an exclusive line of
eco-friendly, lightweight cardboard home furniture. The line of
bookshelves, sideboards and other modern home furnishings convey a sense of
humor and whimsy, while being durable, sturdy and 100% recyclable. He has
received wide acclaim from the international design community, being
nominated as a young talent for the 2010 German National Design Award,
placing second in the 2009 China Furniture Design Award and winning the
'Living' category at Interior 08, the annual international design fair held
in Belgium. He will be exhibiting at the Milan Furniture Fair in April and
has appeared this year in Germany at D3 Professionals, Foundry 2010 and
Interior Trends.
"Design is absolutely essential to the concept of Fashion4Home," said Just
Beyer, co-founder and managing director of Fashion4Home.com. "Fashion4Home
is not about selling knock-offs of contemporary designer products at a
discount, it's about a new style of retail business that leverages the Web
and consumer involvement to make the real thing affordable. Dienes and
Handschuch are the real thing."
Fashion4Home.com is the world's first hub for furniture designers and
consumers to interact directly, making the design and purchasing process
more engaging, fun and affordable. By eliminating all of the associated
costs of inventory, and compressing the entire supply chain,
Furniture4Home.com is able to give consumers the highest quality designer
furniture at a fraction of the price.
About Fashion4Home.com
Fashion4Home.com is an online retailer focused on delivering high-end
designer furniture at 50-70% less than traditional retail prices.
Fashion4Home.com is the first US-based hub for the world's best designers
to share their ideas and sketches directly with consumers to garner
feedback and create new concepts. Fashion4Home.com is committed to
providing an intensely rewarding customer experience by delivering the
highest quality products at the lowest possible prices. The company was
founded by experts from some of the world's largest retail, e-commerce and
Internet companies in the world, including eBay Germany, Adidas and Yahoo!.
The company is backed by Holtzbrinck Ventures and Rocket Internet.
Fashion4Home, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German company
Fashion4Home GmbH.