Minimalism's Soft Side:
New Furniture Sheds Its Edge

Valerie Hartman Levy has never been a fan of modern design. Her taste, she says, runs more toward "rustic, New England, beaten up." So when her interior designer suggested contemporary furnishings for her Atlanta home, Mrs. Levy bristled. "It made me think of black leather couches and chrome," she says.

But with a bit of coaxing from designer Nancy Braithwaite, the Levys are now living in a house packed with angular club chairs and rectangular tables -- albeit in updated versions softened by curvier lines, felt-like wools and touches of ash, birch and walnut. The pieces are all "youthful and beautiful," says Mrs. Levy. Even better, she says, they're functional.

Horizon Channel Corner Chair by Celerie Kemble for Laneventure

The update also helps retailers move merchandise more easily, and sales pitches for the new modern look often includes terms like "warm" and "soft." Jonathan Adler, a designer whose Web site declares "minimalism is a bummer," is now showing in stores his first full line of sofas and club chairs; they're decidedly boxy, but also ample and plushly padded. Interior designer Victoria Hagan is expanding her modernistic furniture collection with angular console tables, with mahogany with brass accents to take the edge off. And next week at the International Furniture Market in High Point, N.C., where the industry showcases its newest designs, designers from Ralph Lauren to Liz Claiborne will introduce new lines that emphasize a softened modern look inspired by Art Deco.

Of course, even with the toned-down approach, modern looks can be off-putting for some. Lots of right angles mean more sharp edges for kids to bump into. Glass surfaces can be a showcase for fingerprints. And sleek designs don't leave much room for stashing books, appliances and other household items.

Still Too Firm

Gina Dizzia, a 28-year-old attorney in New York's Brooklyn Heights, says she likes the "neatness and sleek lines" of modern design. But even the softened sofa she bought for her living room, in white, with a streamlined back, was "too firm" for relaxing and reading. "I like things to be modern-looking," says Ms. Dizzia. "But I also want things to be comfortable." She lent the $1,000 couch to her sister, and replaced it with a plusher version that set her back a further $3,000.

'Dream Bed' (top right) by Barbara Barry for Henredon; Chest of drawers (top left) by Kelly Hoppen for Century Furniture; Club chair (left) by Thomas Pheasant for McGuire Furniture

That U.S. manufacturers are now moving closer to modernism underscores the continued heat they are feeling from cheap Asian imports. Furniture and bedding sales rose almost 8% to $76 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department. But wholesale shipments of U.S.-made wood furniture are well below their 2000 peak -- hitting $10.6 billion in 2004, down from $12.2 billion four years earlier, according to the trade group American Home Furnishings Alliance.

While Asian furniture makers have done well with more elaborate lines, the Asians have steered clear of sleeker looks "because they did not play to their strengths," says Jerry Epperson, a furniture-industry analyst with Mann, Armistead & Epperson in Richmond, Va. For domestic manufacturers, the softened-up, modern look promises an opening that at least won't "put them at a tremendous disadvantage" with importers, Mr. Epperson adds.

Goes With the Flat-Screen TV

The toned-down styles are also part of cyclical shifts in design, which are shorter than ever because of the growth in television-design shows, design Web sites and home-furnishing magazines. What's more, the boom in high-tech electronics, such as flat-screen TVs and stainless steel appliances, has made modern design appealing again, while feeding into the furnishings industry's attempt to create a new modern, yet classical category.

To hit these notes with their collections, many firms are teaming up with well-known contemporary designers. This spring, for example, the San Francisco manufacturer McGuire Furniture rolled out a modern-inspired collection featuring sculptural chairs and bronze and glass tables -- accented or combined with pliable rattan. The firm's partner was minimalist designer Thomas Pheasant. Laneventure, a maker of upscale porch furniture, has teamed with New York designer Celerie Kemble on a new line featuring angular, polished desks and tailored armless chairs upholstered to give a soft feel to sleek lines.

This month, Century Furniture of North Carolina, known for Chippendale-style chairs and cabinetry, started selling a contemporary line designed by British designer Kelly Hoppen. Its features will include stark metal casings and semitransparent dark glass -- plus woodworking joinery and upholstered headboards to lighten the message.

Interior decorators are doing their part to make modern design seem less intimidating by slipping Lucite tables and Eames chairs into living rooms once dominated by antiques. Lily Maddock, a New York fashion designer who recently moved into a new apartment, is mixing a traditional Oriental carpet and crystal legs on a bathroom sink with modernist cubes from Ms. Kemble, her decorator. "She said it would be more interesting if we mixed things up," says Ms. Maddock.

The furnishings designer Mr. Adler compares the new rules of home design to current fashion, where wearing a Chanel jacket with jeans is now the norm. "You have to look a little bit inappropriate to look fashionable," he says. "Anything that is too rigorously in one design looks out of fashion."

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