F. Schumacher & Co.
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| Company type | Privately owned |
|---|---|
| Industry | Textile design |
| Founded | 1889 in New York City, United States |
| Founder | Frederic Schumacher |
| Headquarters | SoHo, New York,, USA |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Timur Yumusaklar, (CEO)[1]
Dara Caponigro, (COO; Creative Director; EIC of Frederic Magazine)[2] Antonella Pilo (CFO) Emily Romero (President, Schumacher North America) Peter Touma (President, Patterson Flynn[3] and Schumacher Europe) Isabel Elliman (President, Schumacher Hospitality) Peter Webster (President, Paramount Prints) Natablie Ebel (Co-founder and Creative Director, Backdrop[4]) Katarina Ostbye (President, Tillett Textiles[5]) |
| Products | Fabrics, wall and floor coverings, trim, finished goods, home accessories, paint, print & digital media. |
| Brands | Schumacher, Patterson Flynn, Backdrop, Tillett Textiles, Frederic Media, Paramount Prints, Schumacher Hospitality |
| Owner | Stephen Puschel & Andrew Puschel [6] |
| Website | www www |
F. Schumacher & Co. (also known as FS&CO) is a leading design company that creates and manufactures products for the interior design industry. Established in 1889 by Frederic Schumacher who came to the United States from France, it is a fifth-generation business still privately owned and managed by the direct direct descendants of its founder.The company maintains its corporate office and design studio in SoHo, New York, has over 25 showrooms across the United States and Europe, a printing workshop in Passaic, New Jersey, design studios in LA and Paris, and a distribution center in Fort Mill, South Carolina.The company is one of the few luxury textile heritage brands still in operation. [7]Schumacher designs are in museum collections and historic house museums throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian demonstrating its significance to American design history.[8]
The company is comprised of seven divisions: Schumacher, which designs, manufactures and sells fabrics, wallcoverings, trim, rugs, furniture and home accessories; Schumacher Hospitality, which provides decorative product for the world’s leading hotels, restaurants, and corporations; Patterson Flynn (formerly Patterson Flynn Martin), which designs, manufactures and sells fabrics, wallcoverings, rugs and carpets with an emphasis on custom designs; Backdrop, which designs and manufactures paint and wallcovering; Frederic Media, which publishes digital content, books and magazines on interior design and decoration; Paramount Prints, a printing facility in the United States; and Tillett Textiles, which designs custom textiles and wallcoverings. [9]
Beginnings (1889–1925)
Frederic Schumacher was born in 1853 in Paris, France and first traveled to New York in the late 1800s as a textile importer for F. Vanoutryve & Cie, a prominent Belgian mill. [10]He later worked in the textile department at Passavant & Co., a French dry goods store . When Passavant closed their textile division in 1889, Schumacher bought the remaining stock and used it to establish F. Schumacher & Co.[2] The company began as a textile importing operation, later expanding into design and production. The company’s first shop was at 22nd Street and Broadway on Manhattan's Ladies' Mile (now the Ladies' Mile Historic District).[11]
With the Gilded Age in full swing by 1893, Schumacher quickly became established as the go-to textile supplier for prominent architect and design firms like the Herter Brothers, Stanford White, Tiffany Studios, Elsie de Wolfe, Edith Wharton and many others.[12] The company sold decorative fabrics that adorned new estates, manors, and hotels, including the Waldorf-Astoria and Ritz-Carlton hotels, the Vanderbilt’s Newport mansion, the Breakers, and the Hewitt family’s estate, Ringwood Manor.
In 1895, the company purchased a domestic fabric manufacturing facility, the Waverly Mill in Paterson, New Jersey.[13] The Waverly Mill produced woven fabrics for residences, businesses and public buildings, including a satin lampas that Stanford White designed in 1902 for Theodore Roosevelt’s White House.
A modern approach (1925–1945)
In 1899, Frederic brought his nephew, Pierre Pozier, from France to New York to learn the business. [14]After Frederic’s passing in 1912, Pierre, a visionary in his own right, became Vice President of the company. [15]
Pierre Pozier was an artist, and well-connected to the art scene in Paris. In 1925, Pozier attended the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris, an exhibition that advanced the modernity expressed by the Art Deco movement.[16]
In 1930, Pierre Pozier brought on luminary French fashion designer Paul Poiret to create a line of fabrics for Schumacher.[17]It was the first designer fabric collection of its kind and was followed by years of successful collaborations.
Mid-Century
With the rise in suburban communities and the American housewife, Schumacher established Waverly (a division of Schumacher which was sold in 2007) to market directly to the department store consumer.[18] Schumacher also began advertising in print media in 1944 with the first slogan "all three," allowing customers to purchase fabric, wallpaper and carpeting in one place.
In 1951, a custom-designed Liberty Bell and Liberty Cap were woven at the Schumacher mill for both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. In 1950, First Lady Bess Truman selected fabric from F. Schumacher & Co. (designed by Vera Neumann ) to decorate the White House's third-floor Solarium windows and upholstery.[19]
In 1956, upon learning that many famous generals in history had been honored with a commemorative toile, Mrs. Eisenhower and decorator Elisabeth Draper devised a design from the buildings, trophies, and motifs that symbolized President Eisenhower’s life and career. The pattern was even fashioned into a dress for Mrs. Eisenhower to wear during the president’s successful 1956 reelection campaign.[20]
Schumacher’s Blue Room Lampas was featured in Jackie Kennedy’s famous TV tour of the White House, which aired in 1962.[21]
During World War II, Schumacher’s Wavery Mill was key to the war efforts; operating 24 hours a day manufacturing material for parachutes, life preservers and other military equipment.
During the mid-century, Schumacher released several collaborative collections with such designers as Cecil Beaton, Dorothy Draper, Frank Lloyd Wright, Joseph Frank, Jeremiah Goodman, and Elsa Schiaparelli. Many of the patterns in these collections are still available today along with reboot collections with the estates of Vera Neumann and Frank Lloyd Wright released in 2014 and 2018, respectively.[22]
