The Gardens at AmericasMart. Michelle Simakis ATLANTA –The Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market, which closed its eight-day run on January 13, announced that exhibitors throughout the 7.2 million-square-foot AmericasMart campus reported the highest-volume buying since 2007.
Chini Alarco Whitmore, manager and buyer at Charlie Whitmore Gardens in Amagansett, N.Y., has been going to AmericasMart for the past eight or 10 years, and says she thought the show was “very well attended.”
“There were new vendors I hadn’t seen before,” Whitmore says.
She noticed that crown-shaped Christmas ornaments were popular in the holiday sections, while octopuses seemed to be everywhere in the general décor areas.
“I saw crowns repeated in several places; crowns in the trees as ornaments and as tree toppers. It was a very glamorous Christmas,” she says. “There were containers with octopus legs, and octopuses in table décor.”
That could be due to the popularity of nautical items, she says.
“Coastal is so big. And I will say the colors were more neutral, there were more earth tones, at least that’s what I was buying,” she says.
But that didn’t stop her from noticing and admiring the bright, red pottery in The Gardens.
“Red is really difficult to achieve, so it’s a lot more expensive but it’s really beautiful,” she says.
Liz Messing, owner of The Artful Garden in Crown Point, Ind., says she’s been going to AmericasMart for the past 15 years, and each year tends to be different.
"For me, when I first attended, there used to be a lot more handcrafted, a lot more Made in the USA, and I seem to find that less and less as far as gardening is concerned,” Messing says. But she still finds gems for her store throughout the market, she says.
One of her favorite products at the show this year were various head-shaped planters.
“I saw them from a couple of different vendors, and I’m always looking for new planter heads. I have hair, or grass, growing out of them, and succulents that are droopy so they look like curly hair,” she says. “I make them funky looking. The variety and selection out there is a lot better [than in years past].”
She’s also noticed the popularity of lanterns growing.
“They are always popular, but this year more than ever,” she says. “There is different lanterns made with canning jars and all kinds of stuff. I even saw one light fixture done with old-fashioned cheese graters.”
She also said she noticed more variety of solar stakes, a popular item at her store.
Her advice for buyers trying to navigate the massive show is to “not get distracted.”
“I like the thrill of the hunt,” she says.
What were your favorite products from the AmericasMart show? What trends did you notice? Send your thoughts to Michelle Simakis at msimakis@gie.net.