Johann Pauwen and Michaele Simmering began making furniture in their driveway in 2007, with just four pieces to show at a local design fair near their home in Los Angeles. Today their furniture studio, Kalon, is known for its clean-lined, solid wood designs that include everything from cribs to dining tables to wood-framed sofas.
A few years ago, the husband-and-wife pair decided to make and sell a mattress as part of their line. “That turned into a crazy research process,” Simmering recalls. They wanted to use an organic ticking fabric for the mattress, something that would feel comfortable and luxe. But it didn’t take long for the Kalon founders to realize that most manufacturers weren’t tooled for ticking fabric. Jersey fabric had become popular, and organic fabrics had fallen off in variety. Nearly every vendor they approached had invested in retooling for jersey knits and couldn’t produce the product they’d hoped for.
It was a quick and dirty lesson in what it means to toe the line between design and scale in the furniture industry. “We can design whatever we want, but if we want to get it made, there’s a reality that comes in very quickly,” Simmering says.
Kalon exists in the fuzzy gray space of the furniture market: Its goods are neither mass-manufactured nor handcrafted one-offs. Its prices, while expensive, don’t live at the furthest reaches of the high-end market. But they also aren’t affordable to those who shop at the Wayfairs of the world. Kalon’s hardwood Rogosa sofa, for instance, costs $10,450. Its Io crib is priced at $3,200.
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