Adventures in Furniture

Exotic Designs From Far-Flung Locales Spark National Geographic's New Line

Shoppers who journeyed to deepest Dulles on a 90-degree day late last month pulled into a parking lot pulsing with the music of South Africa's Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Inside the sprawling Belfort Furniture store, safari-clad employees passed out monkey-shaped cookies and leopard-print notebooks. Ranged across the showroom were carved mahogany armoires inspired by ancient Cambodian temples and hassocks that harkened to Africa's Serengeti savannah.

Thus was launched the latest adventure undertaken by the National Geographic, testing the wilds of licensing a famous name to sell a line of furniture. The National Geographic, the 116-year-old Washington nonprofit whose flagship magazine reaches nearly 9 million homes worldwide, is focusing its lens on our bedrooms, living rooms and kitchens.

Unlike celebrities that lend name and cachet but no particular expertise -- or possibly even interest -- to the products named for them, the Geographic has an intimate connection to the line of 2,500 branded products being produced for them by eight licensees.

Designs for Lane Home Furnishings, Sferra Bros. linens and Palecek accessories plus lamps, rugs, tableware, pottery and framed photographic prints by other licensees are based on artifacts brought back by the magazine's photographers, writers and filmmakers from the remotest corners of the Earth. The company's extensive rare book collection, antique maps and document archives were a trove of inspiration for colors, patterns, textures and cultural references.

Photographer James Stanfield was one of the consultants for the collection. Stanfield has worked for the Geographic for 40 years, traveling to 120 countries. His house on Virginia's eastern shore is filled with the prizes of his lifetime wanderlust: Peruvian pottery, Burmese puppets, Sioux warrior regalia, Bedouin textiles, Nigerian masks and a jade horse from Shanghai, all are set off by deep blue and sunflower gold walls. "I would find one nice thing on every assignment to bring home," says Stanfield. On expeditions from Rangoon to Prague, he strapped his treasures to camels or squeezed them into photography cases cushioned by sweaters. He routinely travels with a stash of Bubble Wrap.

It is this aura of the far-flung and exotic that National Geographic is hoping to capture in its line of furnishings.

"It's all about lifestyle," says John Dumbacher, senior vice president of licensing. "We did consumer research with our members to find out how to make ourselves contemporary and relevant to peoples' lives."

"We were excited about this concept because it gives us a whole new way to reach and educate people about global understanding," says Linda E. Berkeley, president of National Geographic Enterprises, the merchandising arm of National Geographic.

The Geographic is a nonprofit organization dedicated to exploration, conservation, research and educational programs. Net proceeds from sales of the Home Collection will be directed to the National Geographic Society's World Cultures Fund, which finances archaeologists, anthropologists and artists around the globe.

Berkeley and Dumbacher both came to the Geographic about six years ago with backgrounds in licensing from Universal Studios and Disney, to expand the society's business opportunities. They saw furnishings as a natural extension of the organization's dedication to multiculturalism and diversity. Twenty-four Geographic explorers, including Stanfield, were sent disposable cameras and asked to photograph their homes and collections, to be culled for design ideas.

The collection, three years in development, was launched last fall at the High Point, N.C., furniture market. At the Lane showroom, receptionists wore leopard shawls and zebra blouses. Hang tags described the genesis of each piece: a Sailing Boat Lamp by Wildwood based on one found in the tomb of Egyptian boy King Tutankhamen; a Sferra Bros. linen pillow, embroidered in Lithuania, incorporating traditional Nigerian motifs. (See the entire line at www.nghome.com.)

The line is getting a high-profile push from retailers. At Belfort, which is carrying the Lane pieces exclusively in the Washington area until this fall, the Martha Stewart Collection for Bernhardt has been moved to a less prominent space in the showroom to make room for Lane's Tropic Winds and West Indies pieces. (Don't worry about Martha: Belfort sold $1 million of her stuff in the past year.) Tropic Winds evokes a British colonial mood with wicker and sea grass. For the West Indies line, 18th- and 19th-century motifs are carved in Gabon Mahogany. (To avoid contributing to the devastation of the rain forest, the Geographic stipulated that only plantation-grown mahogany that is annually regenerated be used.) Upholstery fabrics feature palm trees, Moroccan designs and Persian prints. Dramatic Cocofeather accessories by Palecek, made of slices of coconut shells, drew on the vibrant costumes of tribal dancers and plumed ostriches.

"I think this collection appeals to a wide group of people," says Belfort CEO Michael Huber, who sold more than 200 pieces of National Geographic Home the first weekend. "The product has a natural and earthy feel. It has a story behind it."

Industry experts say the collection has the long-term potential to bring in millions of dollars. But a name, even a prestigious one, is not necessarily enough to sell the product. "Brands based around themes or magazines have not been overly successful in the past, but everybody is trying to find a new handle and this is another one," says Warren Shoulberg, editor of HFN, the newsweekly of the home furnishings industry. "I think the customer is going to end up buying it ultimately not because of the National Geographic label but because they like the furniture."

Stanfield, 66, was delighted to be a consultant. He comes from a family of news photographers in Wisconsin, started freelancing for the National Geographic in 1965 and joined the staff in 1967. He became one of their most accomplished chroniclers and storytellers, recording papal palaces and Bulgarian weddings. He has worked on more than 65 major articles, authored seven books and was named White House News Photographers Association Photographer of the Year four times. An evocative shot he took for the magazine of a snow-dusted Windsor Castle was once used as Queen Elizabeth II's official Christmas card. He left his full-time position in 1994 but continues to freelance and lecture for the magazine.

Seven years ago, Stanfield moved from a Northern Virginia condo to a weathered cedar house with a large garden on Virginia's eastern shore.

"I was not a collector before I started traveling for the Geographic," says Stanfield. He is now. He sought out textiles, masks and wood carvings in shops, galleries and street markets. "I was always walking all over these countries, looking for candid photographs of people," says Stanfield. "And I would discover markets and bazaars and souks."

One wall of his home now holds papier-mache masks from Venice. Brass and copper samovars from Pakistan have been made into handsome lamps. Shoes -- goat shepherd's shoes from Greece, Pakistani red shoes with curled toes, Bedouin sandals -- are displayed as richly patterned decorative accessories. The off-white curtains in the living room, silk-screened with pharaohs, come from Egypt. "I was staying at the Nile Hilton in Cairo, and I just loved the drapes in my room," says Stanfield. A call to housekeeping put him in touch with the woman who made them.

"I'd buy pottery that cost 11 cents in Morocco and then spend $30 on a footlocker to ship it home in," says Stanfield, pointing to two urns hanging in his kitchen.

This fall Stanfield is scheduled to conduct a National Geographic Expeditions photography workshop in Tuscany. His Bubble Wrap will be in his suitcase.