The Rise and Fall of Design Within Reach  

Thanks
Nice to see it all summed up.
chewbacca rug would be proud.

Hmmm....sad....
I loved them when they first opened. I bought from their very first catalog...so powerful, the idea of a company that sold all that wonder stuff, directly to me without the need to hire a designer.
Ah well...power corrupts...

Apparently,
It was not in reach after all...

ouch.
Was that just ten years ago?
I never ordered anything, but i still have that little
just-off-square catalog with the wood-grain cover...

I feel a bit bad about DWR
In general, they were/are an honest dealer of quality modern and mid-century modern furniture. Their stores are nice, but here's where I think they made errors;
1) they didn't bother to try to compete with the internet dealers by offering to match the no-tax deal (and arrange for their suppliers to discount that tax amount)
2) they generally only carry products from vendors that can easily be found on the internet. (Why didn't they handle some well known Italian lightning that's not available anywhere else in the US? Why didn't they make an arrangement with Artek after the deal with Herman Miller fell through??)
I would've bought from my local DWR store except for two main issues; first, the tax and delivery charges, and second, my local store had a nasty b*tch working there who looked me over once and decided that her time was too valuable to deal with me. (she got fired not long afterwards....)
Oh well...

Oh yeah
And Ray Brunner looks like a cross between John Goodman (Big Lebowski era) and Philippe Starck.

Interesting read.
Thanks for sharing.
I found this quote by Christophe Pillet rather intriguing:
"They are pirates and thieves, like the Chinese -- except even the Chinese are calling me now to ask me to make something original for them."

Full Upright Position ?
actually DWR cannot claim they were the first to offer modern design to the masses..... FUP did it first and did it better.
if rob forbes was to be honest with himself and the world he would admit that he was first "inspired" by FUP ...... forbes really has no business attempting to clear himself of any contribution to DWR's demise..... he sold out willfully long ago both figurative an literally and was just as guilty if not more so than anyone other person.
can we finally put a fork in this disaster ? what a train wreck.

NYT follow-up story http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/garden/31dwr.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/garden/31dwr.html

And why's he's only using...
And why's he's only using his left arse cheek to sit on that womb chair?

Just went back
To the original story and started reading the comments. Very interesting to see personal accounts from employees, designers, suppliers, etc.

A better written
A better written version of the NYT article appeared on FastCompany.
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/jeff-chu/inquisition/redesign-within-reach

?
Anyone know if DWR is still doing their champagne chair contest? It was one of their bright spots, in my opinion.

My experiences with DWR have been mixed
When I started looking for good mid-century modern furniture, I stopped in the sole Minneapolis DWR and got a middle aged women to 'wait' on me, but in truth, she looked down her nose at me and my questions and was quite snotty. She subsequently lost her job a few years later.
Truth is, I was never very serious about buying from DWR, because 1) I am a bargain shopper and used eBay for most of my furnishings, and 2) I didn't want to pay the local tax or the delivery fees.
I did buy a brand new square Eames table for my record room in my basement, and I did go into DWR to make enquiries. At first, they couldn't find the square table online at their internal website, and then finally did, but quoted a price above the price Hive was selling it for....so i bought it on line from Hive, didn't pay tax and didn't pay for delivery.
Where DWR made their biggest mistake (in my opinion) is that they have too many retail stores (which are expensive to operate) and too many of their 'signature' pieces that they have in their stores can be easily bought on line without the tax or shipping charges.
Of all the stuff I have, I could've bought from DWR 3 or 4 times, but instead got them online, cheaper.