French Heritage Furniture Favorite Returns to Houston With a Spectacular Showroom — Ligne Roset Makes a Craftsmanship Statement

Ligne Roset, the hallowed French heritage furniture brand, has returned to Houston, bringing its iconic contemporary furnishings and accessories in an appointed showroom in BeDesign. That makes it the first French brand to join the sleek emporium of Italian brands.

“It was so important to find someone that understands the craftsmanship that we represent and knows how much work and time goes into it and that we’re not just off the shelf brand,” Simone Vingerhoets-Ziesmann, head of Ligne Roset of the Americas, says. “The savoire faire, it’s very important.”

Vingerhoets-Ziesmann was in Houston for celebration of the Ligne Roset opening. Before a champagne reception that included French Consul General Valerie Baraban, Vingerhoets-Ziesmann sat down with PaperCity and BeDesign’s Adrian Dueñas to chat about the French furniture and accessories manufacturer.

But first, she had to compliment Dueñas and his partner Marcelo Saenz on their “wonderful representation in Houston. It’s so nice as a brand to find a new home with such a talented group of people.”

A quick bit of history: In 1860 Antoine Roset began making wooden umbrellas and walking sticks. In 1950, Antoine’s grandson shifted to contract furniture, a business that continues today. It was in 1973 that the Ligne Roset brand became official and the family opened its first shop. That was also the year that the Rosets tapped designer Michel Ducaroy who designed the iconic, non-conformist Togo design, a piece that naysayers claimed would bring the company down.

Au contraire. It has been the high-end, design-forward firm’s best-selling piece throughout the 50 years since its introduction.

The Togo marked the beginning of lasting relationships with noted interior architects and designers including Pierre Paulin, the Bouroullec brothers and Inga Sempé, who were tasked by Ligne Roset with the design of contemporary furnishings that defy the norm.

“One of our core values is non-conformism. We like to be different. We like to try things. We want to provide comfort in a livable environment. That’s very important,” Vingerhoets-Ziesmann says. “We have a number of traditional and standard-sized and standard-looking sofas. But we also like to do something else.”

The new showroom features the Togo, the Pukka by Yabu Pushelberg, the Pumpkin by Pierre Paulin, the Prado sofa by Christian Werner as well as a number of leather pieces and cabinetry. The displays include lighting, pillows, throws, vases — all the accessories that one would need to completely furnish a room.

Vingerhoets-Ziesmann notes that Ligne Roset is “basically a one-stop shopping” operating as a boutique. Ninety-five percent of the product is manufactured in France.

Ligne Roset Takes a Haute Couture Approach

Commitment to keeping the company France-based and amid a shortage of skilled craftsmen, the family founded a school offering an apprenticeship program for seamstresses and for upholsterers, growing, as it were, the brand’s own talent. Ligne Roset has three factories with seamstresses alone.

“We didn’t want to take the short cut and go outside and not be able to insure the quality of the product,” Vingerhoets-Ziesmann explains.

“We don’t upholster the same way that other manufacturers do where traditionally you take the fabric and place it over the piece of furniture and attach it to the bottom. If you look at something like the Togo, the cover of a Togo includes some of the upholstery.

“It is sewn like a piece of haute couture, like a jacket or a coat. It is the same way we dress the foam. It is much more labor intensive to upholster a piece like this (Togo) than for instance a chair. So that’s where we need this talent.”

She further notes that Ligne Roset sees itself more like a fashion brand with the general lifespan of a given collection running approximately three years. Two or three large upholstery pieces are introduced each year.

“We change the collection very frequently and then we have those best sellers that stay with us for 50 years that are a staple of the collection,” Vingerhoets-Ziesmann tells PaperCity. “But we change a lot more often than other manufacturers do.

“We like to keep it fresh. We like to keep new designers engaged, bring them on board and grow them for the future and make it interesting.”

Commitment to Sustainability

This home design staple is noted for meeting its own strict environmental criteria beginning with the design of each new product. Ligne Roset publishes a carbon footprint and is proud to point to its ecological certifications.

“We have certain processes in the factory where, for example, 78 percent of the waste that is created in the cabinetry factory is reused to heat the factory in the winter. In the lacquer factory, we clean solvents from the water and reuse the majority of it so that nothing goes to waste,” Vingerhoets-Ziesmann says. “When we bring product into this world, we want to make sure that we don’t harm it in any way. Whether it’s the waste or the product itself.

“For example, if we cut leather, cut fabrics, all the little scraps are sold to another factory that makes key chains, wallets. So everything is brought back into the cycle.”