Furniture
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L.A. County Furniture
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While North Carolina is often thought of as home to America’s furniture industry, in fact, Los Angeles County employs more people in the field than Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point combined.
Just over 40,000 people work for furniture companies in L.A. County, many of them in design roles, since most production now takes place overseas. Items are returned to the U.S. in kit form, with final assembly taking place here.
The California Market Center, downtown, is the hub of L.A.’s style industries, including furniture and fashion. Here, over 1,000 showrooms display more than 10,000 product lines in three 13-story buildings. At the nearby L.A. Mart Design Center, more than 1,000 premium product lines are housed in 724,000 square feet of furniture, accessories, and gift product offerings.
On L.A.’s Westside is the Pacific Design Center, which is home to 120 unique showrooms featuring 2,100 product lines. For over three decades, the distinctive “Blue Whale” has been the premier destination for design professionals and their clients.
These wholesale facilities are aimed at interior designers and retail buyers, but quite naturally a number of furniture stores and design studios have clustered around these centers.
Supporting this industry are the many educational institutions that graduate designers, artists, and illustrators. L.A. County hosts 13 different furniture and interior design programs at local colleges and universities. The flagships are at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles where many of its graduates go on to careers in automotive and product design.