Cabana Goes Online With New Shoppable Homeware Platform
NEW DIRECTION: Cabana, the biannual luxury publication, is expanding its colorful, maximalist world of interiors with a new online-shopping platform.
The platform, launched today, is aiming to build on the growing interest around the homeware products created by Cabana, through a series of collaborations with Moda Operandi and 1stdibs.com.
“The new Web site will be the place to shop the world of Cabana,” said editor in chief Martina Mondadori. “It’s basically bringing together a part of the business that we have developed in the past two years, with all the objects for the home and, in particular, our tabletop collections. This part has been growing really fast, so it was about time that we had our own shopping destination where people could find all our products and collaborations.”
The launch comes as the magazine is about to celebrate its 10th issue, debuting in October and featuring covers by Dries Van Noten, who shares a similar philosophy and love of patterns with the Cabana team.
“It’s quite an important milestone for us, so it felt like the right moment to take it one step further and go online,” added Mondadori.
The moment also feels right as consumer interest around homeware is booming, with luxury fashion brands and retailers, from Matchesfashion.com to Moda Operandi, Peter Pilotto and La DoubleJ, extending their fashion offers to the home.
It’s an evolution that makes sense to Mondadori, who launched Cabana in 2014 with a view that women should have as much fun dressing their tables as they do themselves.
“That was the vision I brought to Cabana. I always say, ‘Enjoy decorating the table just as you would enjoy a new pair of shoes or a bag. Mix it up,'” she added. “Women now extend their shopping not only to the way they dress but to their home, they like their style to extend to interiors. I think it’s also due to Instagram and social media, people like to share those moments.”
The site will house a new tabletop collection, as well as all of the collaborations Mondadori has been cooking. Her latest tie-in includes a new range created with For Restless Sleepers, the Milanese label known for its patterned silk pajamas and kimonos, which worked with Mondadori to translate two of its vibrant patterns onto table linens.
There will be additional home products such as bath and bed accessories, as well as objects such as chairs, but tabletop will remain the main category. “It’s linked to our story of the joy of gathering around the table with family and friends or hosting launch events and bringing the members of what I like to call ‘the big Cabana family,’ around the table,” she said.
The site will offer a way to integrate all different aspects of the Cabana brand, from its social media to its product offer and glossy magazine, to attract new readers and shoppers in new markets but also offer its existing audience a more cohesive, 360-degree view of the brand.
“We have a lot of readers of the magazine that don’t access the product and then there are [interiors] aficionados that love the product but had never heard about the magazine,” said Mondadori.
While content will play a role, the focus for Cabana’s online contingent will be commerce.
“We will have quick, smart content and offer glimpses of the magazine but it will mainly be an e-commerce-based site,” explained Mondadori. “I strongly believe that magazines shouldn’t give away everything online, because otherwise why would you spend 20 pounds to buy a magazine at newsstand?”
The company will continue to sell its products through its retail partners, with Moda Operandi and Bergdorf Goodman already picking up the new tabletop collection.
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