Daily News
From Home Furnishing Business
Peruvian Connection Launches Original Print Bedding Collection, Expands Into Lifestyle Category
March 18,
2020 by Jane Chero in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry 
New York-based luxury brand Peruvian Connection is expanding its core product offering this fall to include original print bedding designed in-house featuring new and archival prints from the brand’s storied history. The Andean weavings and ethnographic textiles of Peru that first inspired Peruvian Connection founder Annie Hurlbut Zander and led her to launch the apparel brand in 1976, continue to tell the brand story in this 15-piece bedding collection.
Hurlbut has always had an obsession with old textiles. Her house is filled with antique rugs, tapestries, quilts, and, graphically displayed on the walls, are examples from her extensive collection of Andean weavings.
When Peruvian Connection ventured into brick and mortar retail in 2008, Hurlbut personally sourced every detail of each of the brand’s 8 stores. Her mission was to create an authentic context for the brand’s artisan-made apparel collections. Details incorporated into the store interiors included 19th century Peruvian photographs, smoke-stained Victorian wallpaper, vintage cash wraps, and Andean textiles.
A launch into lifestyle seemed a natural extension that was further amplified when Hurlbut began looking into the brand’s extraordinary archive of original prints. Prints developed over the decades for the apparel collections form the basis for the premier bedding collection.
“For years I’ve daydreamed about a Peruvian Connection home collection. When I fall in love with a print, I want to live with it, not just look at it in my closet. Since many of our original prints lend themselves beautifully to home textiles like bedding, tablecloths and napkins—not to mention wallpaper, gift wrap and paper goods—it seemed like an obvious extension for the brand,” said Hurlbut.
A key inspirational moment for Hurlbut was a chance visit to the bedding department of Ralph Lauren’s Madison Avenue’s flagship in the ‘80s. She was struck by the breathtaking range of patterned sheets and duvets, and the endless possibilities that came with mixing and matching them. Since that encounter, Hurlbut has always owned Ralph Lauren’s printed sheets, and haunts eBay for the richly patterned pieces of yesteryear. It was only fitting that for Hurlbut’s inaugural collection, she sought out the guidance of two former long-term contributors to the Ralph Lauren Home Collection. The 15-piece bedding collection includes two mixed print sets of cotton sateen sheets and duvets, woven and knit alpaca throws and pillows, printed velvet pillows, a matelassé cotton coverlet with shams and will be available to purchase in Peruvian Connection retail stores and online beginning in July 2020.