You May Be Surprised to Hear That Restoration Hardware Is Doing Great

I remember when Restoration Hardware sold, well, hardware, and we shopped there often for such staples as lamps, cabinetry, and fixtures. Oh, and no “membership” required. A few years ago, the local store relocated to a more upscale new mall downtown. When we visited the new store, we felt like gate-crashers at an Oscars afterparty. Never again.

What's different about RH? People enjoy being in the store. There is a large untapped demand among the extremely affluent for interior design services that is NOT served by traditional outlets. RH is not competing with furniture stores and department stores; it's competing with independent interior designers and interior design firms. Most people find and use an interior designer via word of mouth. Most designers make those customers feel small and ignorant. Customers working with RH interior designers will feel better than they do working with designers working out of specialized office buildings on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. They will spend less than with the designer, but much more than at Macy's or a furniture store. RH makes wealthy people feel good about using RH interior designers and about shopping at RH. Look around. At most furniture and department stores, there's lots of furniture and furnishings to see, but no where to sit down. At RH, there's plenty of seating. On every floor, there are clean, pleasant and private restrooms. The place looks good, smells good, and is immaculate. RH has created a new way to sell to the extremely affluent. RH customers feel better in the store than in department stores, furniture stores, or an interior design studio. They have FUN at RH, even if they hate shopping.

Mr. Friedman didn't just step down because of the affair with the 26 year old employee, but because she tried to kill herself over the abuses sustained in the relationship. He's a sick puppy.

RH lost me with those giant, wasteful catalogues that used to arrive, unbidden, seemingly every month. How many trees died for those dumb catalogues? Made me feel guilty and anxious just picking one up.

How much of this over priced stuff is made in the USA?

RH is a lifestyle company selling an illusion--that can be a great way to make money, as Ralph Lauren has shown by endlessly recycling one version after another of Martha's Vineyard 'chic'. RH, by contrast, channels an imaginary world that might exist somewhere on a spectrum between ancient Egypt, and the Versailles. It would be fine if it weren't so heavy-handed and, frankly, tasteless. Combine that with their poor quality, and what you get is a big catalog take on the old adage that 'there's a sucker born every minute'.

Looks like Trump taste is spreading. All that gold and velvet.

This article makes me wish civilization would collapse.

I think Ms Green forgot to mention where this store is located. To say it is in the old meat packing district is not enough information

“I though rich people had color TVs.” Sic, indeed.

That is a room for teenager? Seriously? Maybe a teenager who is an Ivanka wannabe.

I will personally never buy from them again. When my husband & I were newlyweds we bought a couch, bench, and bed from RH because I was just obsessed with their whole line. Less than 10 years later and I am already having to replace the pieces. For that price, the quality is just not there! The couch started showing terrible signs of wear (I’m talking ripped fabric, buttons coming off, feathers coming out) after only 3 years with very normal use- we didn’t even have kids yet!

I watched a stunning RH atomic age lighting fixture for a year and finally pulled the trigger when it went on sale. Cost as much as an armchair, but it's the most beautiful piece in my home. It makes me happy to see such a stylish light. Even if I can't afford the matching furniture etc, it's like a splurge on jewelry. Once in a while, ya gotta treat yourself to the pearls. No regrets.

I would like to add my admiration for Restoration Hardware as a shining example of true customer care. I have purchased a number of fine items at RH but the largest purchase was a beautiful Belgium Linen sofa - available when purchased only with one very long and heavy bottom pillow filled with down and feathers. It was luxurious but a back breaker to maintain. When I noticed that RH was suddenly offering a split bottom pillow I called to ask if I could order one - instead the sales person got back to me, noted that they might not be able to match the dye lot of the material after a year so RH would replace the entire sofa at no charge. I was told, 'that's what we do." And that's what they did. Wow! Is that not great customer service? Now if they would finally get a floor model in place of their sofa bed here in Toronto at their 4-story 'gallery', I would look forward to ordering one once I checked out the mechanism. At any rate - maybe RH is on to something- there really is no fun ordering online when one can feel and touch an item and also interact with others. I guess I am old-fashioned - and thankfully, so is RH

Have an RH card since 2012, but the only unique things I have purchased are beautiful rods for all the windows. I gave my son lots of towels for his new home from RH but he said they were too heavy and cumbersome to dry himself off with. Me, I love to look at the RH website, but Pottery Barn is still my BFF.

Sheer decadence: "41% of Americans who earn over $200,000 a year have cried because they didn’t have enough money." according to Axios. Could uber-plush whitey white sofas and tusks be why?

Despite the name "Restoration Hardware" is not a hardware store at all -- you know, the sort of place real people need to get screws, tools, and fixtures. It's yet another "lifestyles of the rich and famous" high-end store, catering to the 1% or the wannabees. (If you have any doubt look at the "room suggested for teenagers"!) It's basically a boutique for them and a tourist destination. As such, the fact it's "doing great" is no surprise!

Thanks for explaining the RH effect. I couldn't figure it out...a fee to buy home goods that remind me of an overplayed hand. I receive the catalogue annually, I do skip through it but it doesn't make it past the outdoor trash can. It always reminds me of a furniture version of Ralph Lauren. Now I know that is as intended. Yuck!

I use some RH in most of my design projects. The pieces don't last the way a real upholsterer's do, but they are comfortable and stylish, made well enough, and male clients love the giant sofas. They also have the delivery thing down, even in Manhattan. The catalogues and the naming system for all the upholstered pieces are both horrible and confusing, however, maybe even on purpose. The Belgian slope arm, or was it the Belgian track arm, or maybe it was the Modena track arm, or the Modena taper arm, or the armed Belgian Modena, or, I don't remember, and the pictures all look kinda the same, and wait, you liked the GRAY one? Spend some time in an RH store and listen to the excited customers sitting on pieces of furniture larger than a Chevy Suburban. Everyone LOVES it.

Sadly after spending $45000 dollars realised that quality of their products is debatable. We bought a bed and the wood started cracking and falling apart in less than a year. Side tables with the bed are just unusable because the drawers don’t close properly. The sofa that we bought is hard to mainatain and keep clean. Their financing partner is one of the most disorganised predatory lenders that specialises in torturing its customers. When we pay more than the payment minimum they come up with convulated adjustments to bamboozle and hide the fact that they are charging or rather gouging you. Customer service is pleaseant but the poor reps are handicapped by the convulated policies practiced by RH financing bank. SUGGESTION - if you can avoid this store and not buy because quality is poor and financing is abominable then recommend doing so.

But whatever happened to that fabulous zinc bar at Pastis?

Glowering? Surely there's a more appropriate adjective to describe this building than, according to Merriam Webster, "look[ing] or star[ing] with sullen annoyance or anger"

I'm at a complete loss to understand RH's appeal. I was in one of their outlet stores a few months ago and even at an outlet level, the prices were astronomical. The article compares them favorably to Room & Board, but R&B would have, in my humble personal observation, a more reasonable price point. I noticed that the scale of their furniture is also often at the XXL end of the scale - a great thing if you've got a McMansion to fill, I imagine. It also seems to be heading in more of a Pier One style and tone these days. More power to them if the registers are ringing, but I just don't get it, at all.

How many of us have huge houses to put that huge furniture that RH sells? And the expense of the store is crazy. I bought nickel-plated bathroom towel racks, hooks, guest towel rings, etc. in New York for my apartment. I decided to buy that same pattern for my home in Portland some four years later. The mark-up had gone through the roof. My 24-inch towel rack had gone up from $50 to $90! I used to love their lamps, but everything in the store these days is basic--white, black, gray. Never my color palette. It's like watching a reveal of an HG TV makeover show.

If you miss the Restoration Hardware of its early days, Crate & Barrel's CB2 stores are filling that niche now.

I am so pleased you mentioned Emeco's IP-action against RH and their knock off tendencies: "It was in 2012 . . . that Emeco, the maker of the aluminum Navy chair since the 1940s, sued Restoration Hardware for reproducing it without permission (the suit was settled out of court)." Settled or not, chasing often international IP-thieves is expensive, distracting and demoralizing. It's often a Pyrrhic victory, akin to Whack-A-Mole, but it needs to be done.