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Haute wares

The lesson learned from the recent International Home & Housewares Show of new products: Nothing is too simple or too complicated to avoid the high-end design treatment.

	[Photos: Jenn-Air Attrezzi]
	The sleek glass-and-steel appearance of the stand mixer from Jenn-Air Attrezzi is supposed to earn it a permanent place on the counter. It offers a “gradual start” mode to begin mixing and a “pause” mode for adding ingredients. It’s $349.
	Blend and serve from a jar that is intended to evoke fine Italian glass. It’s $199.99.
	The Jenn-Air Attrezzi toaster has seven “shade settings,” and signals your toast is done with a “subtle audible tone,” the manufacturer says, then keeps it warm. The glass base and the metal toasting chamber can be mixed and matched in colors and finishes. It starts at $179.

CHICAGO - When did we get emotional about our toasters?

And, for that matter, our blenders, irons, floor cleaners and timers?

When every mundane utensil is a canvas for brilliant color and design; when an entire industry explodes around the idea that it's cool to be homey; and when consumers demand that their can-openers be useful and gorgeous - that's when nesting becomes big business and every mopmaker on the planet goes for our gut.

After all, when your entire day is consumed by things you can't control, isn't it empowering when your trash can exceeds your expectations?

The heartstrings were tugged aplenty at the recent International Home & Housewares Show, the annual marketplace of all things to make homes more livable and efficient for their harried inhabitants. Sixty thousand buyers and sellers crowded the McCormick Place Exposition Center to see what 2,200 exhibitors had to offer.

"You get this excitement when you're pleasantly surprised that something does what it says it's going to do," said Tammy Stokes of Uniondale, N.Y., who serves on a consumer panel sponsored by the International Housewares Association trade organization called HIPsters (Home Trend Influentials Panel). The national panel, five of whose members participated in a seminar at the show, advises the organization about consumer needs, likes, wants and trends.

Tom O'Higgins, a former Williams-Sonoma executive who now heads a marketing and design firm in California, divides the market into tech-obsessed "geeks" and over-50 "geezers": "two key segments of the population who increasingly rule the market with their spending dollars."

The success of the exhibitors showing here, O'Higgins says, will depend to a large degree on how well they address the needs of these disparate consumers.

The geek portion of the market, defined as some 61-million people ages 10 to 26, will drive design for a lot of future cooking, organizing and decorating products. This group - sometimes called "echo boomers," as the children of baby boomers, who are now roughly 40 to 59 - are growing up with video games, cell phones and instant messaging. They are less-impressed than their elders by luxury brands. They will buy the latest thing, but when something better comes out a year later, they'll upgrade.

As consumers, O'Higgins says, they respond to cutting-edge design as well as nostalgia stuff, such as DeLonghi's retro toaster-radio that makes your breakfast and brings you the news at the same time. They're particularly receptive to innovative materials, as in flexible silicone cupcake pans and neoprene six-pack carriers in kiwi green.

The 82-million Americans older than age 50 have been a driving market force since birth, they're still out there shopping for high-end kitchen accessories and status vacuums. Far from scaling down, many in this group are remodeling their homes as they become empty nesters or retirees, and searching for ways to stay young and healthy beyond Botox.

They are "looking for professional products for their kitchen, and investment appliances that look good on their kitchen islands," O'Higgins said.

Speaking of kitchens and trash cans, containing trash seems to be the least of what customers want. Oxo added a lock to tame unruly plastic bags, as well as stepup lids engineered so that they don't bang into your walls, creating unsightly marks. Simplehuman featured a "bucket park" that allows you to rest the liner midway inside the can for easier bag removal. And Umbra, the folks who infused high design in waste containers, trotted out arresting new colors such as marine, mango and root beer.

Many of the trends evident in recent years - vibrant color, organizing and crafts, trophy appliances, coffee culture - continued to assert themselves at this year's show. But instead of introducing the next big thing, manufacturers were more akin to alchemists seeking to transform ordinary products into gold. Call it the year of highly evolved stuff.

In many cases, the most memorable products also seemed the simplest, evoking a reaction of "At last!" Serrated soft-skin peelers, for instance, introduced by Zyliss $9, www.zyliss.com) and Oxo ($7, www.oxo.com) solve the problem of those pesky paring knives and fumbling fingers on peaches, plums, zucchini and tomatoes. The manufacturers are counting on products such as this to make life easier in our souped-up kitchens.

"People are into aspirational cooking," says Anastasia Mickelson, spokeswoman for Zyliss. "Instead of serving store-bought macaroni and cheese and frozen pie, they want to make their own peach cobbler."

Another "aha" moment came with the $3 plastic lettuce knife by Zyliss, possibly the best bargain at the show. For folks who don't like to tear but don't want to ruin the lettuce, this sharp, colorful plastic tool is the thing.

As a rule, appliances are tricky gifts to give a woman. They don't quite express love the way, say, diamonds or spa retreats do. But the Jenn-Air Attrezzi blender and stand mixer are a different story blender, $349.99; mixer, $199.99; www.jennairattrezzi.com) They are the sirens of the housewares category, romancing innocents and making them forget all about the little blender at home. The newest offering of the dreamy "Signature" line by Michael Weems is a pink shade called "iced coral." Bet Mom won't shove this in the closet after Mother's Day.

And there's more to love: The newest member of the Attrezzi family is a toaster ($179 to $199) that you can customize with a choice of five metal finishes and six glass bases.

To take the one-cup coffeemaker to the next level, Bialetti has created the Moka Express, a stove-top cappuccinomaker for $90 that brews the frothy drink in 41/2 minutes. Resist it if you can.

How many of us have fallen decidedly out of love with housewares that don't work or are so complicated you want to throw them against the wall?

"You don't want a microwave that takes a manual to use," said Heather Fadden of Snohomish, Wash., who also served on the HIPsters panel. "You want a button that says popcorn."

Take the traditional timer, for instance. Who knew it's a hot category? According to Oxo spokeswoman Gretchen Holt, timers haven't fit the bill for a long time. You either can't hear them, can't see them or can't figure out how to work them on your oven. They also don't work well for long-term cooking.

Enter the Oxo double timer ($25): It has a longer ring when time's up, an angled face and two timers: one for longer-term projects such as roasting a turkey and the other for cooking at intervals, such as basting. "It's an intuitive design," Holt says.

These items will make an appearance at a housewares store near you in the months ahead:

* On the heels of the single-serving trend of last year, Blender Express has a jar that, when turned upside down, looks like a milkshake glass. Add the interchangeable top and voila, a smoothie or shake for one.

The company has also created the Blender Solution, a multifunctional appliance with interchangeable bases for a blender and smoothiemaker, as well as a food-processor attachment.

* Oster introduced the "blue chill freezer jar." Interchangeable with the company's existing blenders, the jar contains freezable liquid that can keep drinks cold for up to six hours. This will be available next month for $14.99; visit www.oster.com * Hamilton Beach showed its "Stay or Go" slow cooker with handles for carrying, space for a serving spoon on the lid and a spot for labeling your dish at the potluck supper. Available in July for $29.99; www.hamiltonbeach.com * Thank you, HGTV, for bringing back the craft of sewing to the masses. The Singer booth showed a telling statistic: Sales of sewing machines have nearly doubled during the past five years. A generation of TV watchers in their 20s and 30s has become hooked on instant makeovers once they see how the pros whip up new looks on home-decorating shows.

To respond to the demand, gear has gotten fancier. A Singer model on display was creating an embroidered pattern from a computer program in much the same way that a digital piano works without human contact. In the Simplicity booth, a sharp number called the Digital Quick Press improved on the original unit with a control panel that takes all the guesswork out of temperature settings when you're pressing. It's handy for sewing a quilt or freshening up a crease in trousers. List price is $329; it's at amazon.com for $189.

* Heart disease remains the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, and the best chance for surviving sudden cardiac arrest is by applying a defibrillator within five minutes. The HeartStart Home Defibrillator by Philips home model, just approved by the FDA for over-the-counter sales, comes with voice instructions that talk you through the procedure. About $1,495 at www.heartstarthome.com or www.amazon.com * And let's not forget the shelf liner. The product, which has a useful but unsexy mission, has been repurposed for the crafting life. At the Grip It booth, colorful adhesive shelf paper lined canisters and accented a child's table and chairs.

- Information from the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News was used in this report.

[Last modified April 22, 2005, 08:41:05]