For almost two decades, TV personalities and movie stars have been lending their famous faces and names to clothing lines, perfume and home furnishings.
Now Emmy award-winning TV host and celebrity cook Rachael Ray has joined the fray, extending her lifestyle brand with the Rachael Ray Home Collection. Manufactured by Legacy Classic Furniture and Craftmaster Upholstery, it debuted during the Spring High Point Market.
She and her husband, John Cusimano, were on hand last month to walk buyers through her three collections, Soho, Upstate and Highline. All will be available to consumers this fall.
“I love design and this is all me,” Ray says, looking around the showroom.
One piece she calls “a most perfect thing” is a high-backed banquette with a pull-out bed under the seat.
“It looks great in a tiny country place or a city apartment or a giant loft. In a big space, it’s just a really cool giant settee, but it’s a bed!”
Ray calls the Soho and Highline collections “city mouse” with two different looks. “One is a little more feminine and one a little more masculine.”
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“I called the country one Upstate instead of Beat-up Italian Country,” she jokes.
She designed every piece so it could be mixed or matched with pieces from the other collections. Ray is a fan of mid-century modern and Gio Ponti, but she also loves art deco.
“It is very hard for anyone to pinpoint this because I am a very eclectic person. I don’t design in one discipline,” she says. “So many of these pieces are an amalgamation of all the things I love.”
She says she worked for two years drawing designs for kitchen, living room, dining room and bedroom furniture.
“I would just doodle in the margins of my notebook where I write my recipes,” she explains.
Pieces in each of the three lines resemble ones she has in her own home. Some pieces in the Upstate collection are based on a hunt country style that her mother loved and she grew up with.
“But a lot of the pieces are what I have in my home, just made smarter,” she says.
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Ray became very emotional when she walked through the showroom and saw the entire collection set up in one place for the first time.
“I was completely overwhelmed,” she admits. “This stuff has only lived in my head.”
“It was like Christmas morning for you,” her husband says.
“Way better!” she responds. “These are gifts that keep on giving and they are not just for me. They are for everybody.”
Ray says she wanted the furniture made in America. The upholstery is done in the U.S., while the case-goods are made in China. The veneers are added in this country and the pieces assembled here.
The kitchen island holds a special place in her heart. She designed a cutout that can be opened to dispose of food scraps after chopping and other food prep.
“The top had to be butcher block. … The best part is the removable stainless-steel liner. It can be removed and put in the dishwasher.”
She says she strove to create furniture that would have lasting value. “I just want things to be useful and at a fair price and that is what we do.”
