By now most industry folks have at least heard of sixinchR, a new brand introduced to the North American market at NeoCon 2013. But its story begins in Belgium in the early 2000s. At that time, Michel Sels was running his family’s mannequin business and had met an art student named Pieter Jamart.
Pieter was involved in an art/design study exploring various coating applications, and ultimately the two working together developed the proprietary process that is used to finish the sixinch products. The polyurethane-based coating process produces an almost skin-like surface that is pliable and pleasant to the touch. It is impervious to weather, allowing for outdoor use and also to liquid spills, in the case of use indoors.
The coating works well on a number of substrates, as is perfectly demonstrated by the Louis II Chair. But the duo soon came to the realization that their coating combined with the cut foam that is used primarily as seat cushions in the furniture industry could work as sculptural furniture with virtually unlimited potential for customization.
In 2003, the two founded sixinch in Belgium with the mission, “…to enable the creative designer to develop new forms that ultimately shape the life experiences of their clients.” They further stated, ”We believe that immeasurable creativity lives inside each of us, in that space between our ears – a mere 150 mm wide, or six inches.” And voilà, they had a name for the company!
As they set out to build a new company based on those beliefs, they naturally aligned with the idea of making custom products a standard aspect of the business. As they put it, “We offer our manufacturing services to designers, architects and creative minds to bring their ideas to life.” But in order to demonstrate the capabilities of the coating and also to exercise their own creativity, they decided the company would offer a wide variety of standard products designed by Mr. Jamart and a “select group” of international designers.
After achieving a credible degree of success in its “home markets” in Europe, the company started thinking of how to approach the North American market. In that process, since foam is an integral part of what it does, the company turned to E.R. Carpenter, the “…largest maker of comfort cushioning products in the world with 19 foam producing plants, 4,700 employees, and 56 global locations” for a recommendation of a high quality North American company with foam cutting capability. Carpenter’s recommendation was its good customer out of Goshen, Indiana, Wieland Designs.
Clifford Wieland, who had a long family background in furniture manufacturing, founded Wieland Designs in 1976. By the time sixinch came looking for a North American partner, the company had evolved into a well-established OEM supplier to many of the big contract furniture companies. Conveniently located about 100 miles from either Grand Rapids or Holland, Michigan, Wieland Designs had invested in the machinery and the disciplined processes that made them highly attractive to the “big guys” looking to outsource some lower volume but important seating product lines. So the company was doing well and happy making furniture under the brand of many others. On the other hand, making products over which you have no marketing control is its own source of angst, making a brand of one’s own appealing to an OEM manufacturer.
In 2007, Clifford Wieland’s son Kip was named CEO of Wieland Designs. And in 2012 when he met the two Belgians, the chemistry was excellent (here I refer to the interpersonal chemistry, not the chemistry of the coating!). He immediately recognized the match between his company’s capabilities and the design driven direction of sixinch, and saw a collaboration with it as a chance for Wieland Designs to build a brand of its own alongside its business as an OEM manufacturer.
Thus, by NeoCon 2013 we were introduced to sixinch, which promptly won a Best of NeoCon Editor’s Choice award. The exhibit space on the 8th floor was jammed, as visitors were drawn to the pleasantly strange aesthetics of the many shapes and styles, as well as the unusual “hand” of the coating. Mr. Wieland reports that the euphoria and high expectations raised by the success of NeoCon slowly evaporated as the slow process of building a brand set in.
As an OEM supplier, one is sheltered from the snail-like pace at which new products are accepted and adopted in the contract furniture industry. Veteran industry marketers know that it routinely takes three or more years for a new product to take off, and the building curve for a significantly different concept can be much longer. However Mr. Wieland and his team didn’t give up; rather, they concentrated on building the sales and marketing infrastructure that is required to ensure long term success.
Returning to NeoCon in 2014 with the concept of “Invade your Space,” sixinch succeeded in developing exclusive relationships with MMPI for several public spaces and with Mohawk Group for an extensive display in its showroom. These moves along with continued development of new standard products, helped build awareness of the brand and gradually the order book started to fill up.
Leading up to NeoCon 2015, Mr. Wieland initiated a product development project with the Chicago office of Gensler Product Design. While sixinch products fit interior applications perfectly well, the team decided to address a couple of issues of outdoor use that had been heretofore neglected by the market: shade and a way to recharge those always hungry electronic device batteries.
The Gensler design team consisted of Robert Mariduena, Thomas Fernandez and Steve Meier, while senior designer David Behles led the sixinch design and development team. Early on, they made the decision to design the shade and recharge element to be self-sufficient, allowing it to be used where access to an electrical main would be impractical or too costly, and also allowing the unit to be relocated if so desired. What that eventually led to is a solar array in combination with what sixinch has dubbed a “solar generator,” that is essentially a battery system to ensure the function of the recharge station during periods when the sun isn’t shining.
Grove by sixinch is a collection of product families comprising the Lilly shade (with or without the solar recharging solution), the Recess Collection and the Park Collection. Together the Grove products walked away with a whole grove of Contract magazine’s Best of NeoCon Awards, including a Gold, an Innovation Award and a Silver Award, along with a Hip Award from Interior Design.
With a passion for creativity and innovation, processes for seamlessly supporting the one-off creativity of the design community, an appealing basis for product differentiation (its proprietary coating) and solid partnership relationship to the parent organization in Belgium, sixinch appears to be destined to see its market acceptance and growth continue to build momentum.