Twin peaks: design gets interesting with the latest duo of furniture companies to hit Dubai

We visit a new interiors showroom in Dubai that combines two notable brands: the home-grown Chattels & More and the eclectic German label Kare.

Some of the products by the eclectic German brand Kare that are available at the new showroom in Dubai. Courtesy Kare

Dubai’s latest furniture showroom is a tale of two distinct halves. While they share an extensive 1,800-square-foot show space on Umm Hurair Road, the offerings of Chattels & More and Kare are as different as can be.

On the left of the space, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group’s newly launched, home-grown Chattels & More brand is all clean lines and calming colours, muted woods and subtle but interesting accents. To the right, the German brand Kare offers outlandish accessories and unexpected designs in a riot of colours. As Adrian Shaw, the general manager of Chattels & More and Kare Middle East, puts it: “This is the calm and beautiful side; and this is the crazy side.”

A family-run, multi-divisional conglomerate, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group has long been active in the UAE’s design segment with the high-end brand Interiors and the ID Design franchise. “We used to go and do a lot of buying for those two entities,” Shaw explains. “We’d go to the fairs in Paris, Germany and ­Milan, but for ID Design, which is a franchise, we were quite limited in what types of products we could buy.

“We saw that there are a lot of products out there that aren’t available on the market here. So we had a conversation about starting something ourselves. And because it’s a family-run business, everybody has been involved in the development of Chattels & More, from coming up with the name to coming up with the concept and developing the brand.”

The company identified a gap in the market for unusual products offered at reasonable prices, made by smaller, artisanal designers. There’s also demand for items that look luxurious, but don’t have the exorbitant price tag to match, says Shaw.

Chattels & More’s standout products include pebble-effect and braided felt rugs, and a low-lying bed with speakers and an iPod docking station built into the wooden headboard. The Les Copains chair, meanwhile, combines copper legs, a seat made from lengths of knotted rope, and softer-than-soft brown leather headrests and cushions. It’s a stunning piece of minimalist design.

There’s also a wooden table where the natural knots of the wood have been filled in with metal to create unexpected contrast. “This is from a German supplier,” says Shaw. “It’s a very small company, and he had a side stand at Milan furniture fair, with all these big, old oak chests. While we were talking to him, he said: ‘I’ve been testing this other product. Do you like it?’ We did.

“We want to offer something that is unique, something that is beautiful and something that is affordable. So when we go to any of the stands, or visit any of the factories or artisans or designers, we always look beyond what they are offering to see if they have anything else. When you are at the fairs, it’s very commercial. We dig a bit deeper. We also don’t buy container after container of the same product – we’ll buy maybe five or 10 pieces, and then we’ll move on to a different style.”

The showroom is on Umm Hurair Road, near Al Maktoum Bridge in Bur Dubai, which may be unfamiliar to those who think Dubai ends at the World Trade Centre roundabout, but it’s actually Dubai’s original furniture district. A huge new Homes R Us in the area is a sign that the area may be evolving from a district favoured by “in the know” interior designers to a more consumer-friendly shopping destination. “I think a lot of people are ­coming out of the malls now,” says Shaw. “Mall of the Emirates was the main furniture area, and you still get a lot of footfall there, but I think you have a lot of other areas developing – and that’s where you need to be, really, to cover the market.

“We own the building, and it’s just been completely rebuilt. We had this space that we could design ourselves. The showroom layout and design was all about getting back to a very natural feeling, with concrete floors, rusted metals and a lot of woods.”

This is in keeping with a wider trend that Shaw is seeing across the industry. “Trends are changing – there’s a lot more ­leather and sheepskin and wood; things are a lot more organic. And designers are trying to do things that are a bit different, for example, mixing metals with wood.”

For something totally different, look no further than the Kare part of the showroom. If Chattels & More is where you go for larger investment pieces – the ones you’ll use for years to come and lug around the world with you – then Kare is your answer for those unusual accents that will keep your home looking fresh and fashionable. The prices, particularly when it comes to the smaller items, are so reasonable that you can afford to switch things up when you need a change of scenery.

This is where you’ll find oversized clocks in bright pops of pink, denim side chairs, tables shaped like workbenches, and side tables propped up by polar bears. The all-red Moulin Rouge range isn’t for the faint hearted, but it’s one of the brand’s best-sellers, while the White Diva range is all bright whites, hues of silver and mountains of crystal.

“We’ve been dealing with Kare for a long time in the UAE, but it’s been a shop-in-shop in ID Design,” says Shaw. “The time is right for them to have their own mono-brand showroom in ­Dubai, because the products they are creating really stand out. It’s very eclectic, but it fits different people’s moods, and is always very fashionable.”

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