Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn
Subsidiary
Industry home furnishing
Founded 1949
Founders Paul Secon and Morris Secon
Headquarters San Francisco, California, USA
Number of locations
 198 (2015)
Parent Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
Website www.potterybarn.com

Pottery Barn is a United States-based upscale home furnishing store chain with retail stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Australia. Pottery Barn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williams-Sonoma, Inc..

The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Pottery Barn also operates several specialty stores under the titles Pottery Barn Kids and PBteen. Pottery Barn has two retail catalogues, the traditional Pottery Barn catalogue and Pottery Barn Bed + Bath to focus only on its bed and bath lines.

History

The Pottery Barn store in Beverly Hills, California

The Pottery Barn was co-founded in 1949 by Paul Secon and his brother Morris in West Chelsea, Manhattan. Paul Secon discovered three barns full of pottery from the factory of Glidden Parker in Alfred, New York who had stored extras and seconds up the road from the business.[1] The Secon brothers built their chain up to seven stores. Paul sold his share in 1966 and Morris sold his to two outside partners in 1968.[2] The new owner expanded the chain to 13 stores before selling it to The Gap in 1984. The company was later sold to Williams-Sonoma in September 1986.[1][2]

Its mail-order catalog was first published in 1987.[3]

In 2017, the company introduced an augmented reality app for iOS that allowed users to virtually place Pottery Barn products into a room and save room design ideas.[4]

PBteen

PBteen is the first home retailer to focus on teenagers. It was launched in 2003. The first PB Teen store opened in Georgia in 2009, as well as in New York City and Chicago. The store now has a sub brand PB Dorm aimed at young people starting college life.[5]

Pottery Barn is referenced a number of times in the US TV Show Friends, for example when Rachel buys furniture for Phoebe's apartment (which she is staying in at the time), and claims that it's all authentically old furniture, it's actually all from Pottery Barn.[6] Another example is in TV show Seinfeld, Kramer talks with Jerry about how he is receiving too many catalogs from Pottery Barn. He saves the collected catalogs, takes them and throws them into the store.[7] Also Sheldon Cooper references it often in the show The Big Bang Theory. A Pottery Barn retail store is seen situated next to Felix Ungar's Manhattan F.U. Enterprises office/studio in "The Odd Couple's" first season in 1970[8]. Pottery Barn is referenced in the Broadway Musical Dear Evan Hansen, as a location where the title character works. He informs another character that he can get her and her family a discount in "overpriced home décor."

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Miller, Stephen. "Paul Secon, 91, Founded Pottery Barn". The Sun. The Sun. Retrieved 3 April 2017.
  2. 1 2 Hevesi, Dennis (2007-03-08). "Paul Secon, 91, Who Helped Found Pottery Barn Chain, Dies". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  3. ↑ Pottery Barn, "About Us",
  4. ↑ "Williams-Sonoma launches AR iOS app for Pottery Barn - Retail Business Review". www.retail-business-review.com. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  5. ↑ Johnson, Jenna (2011-08-19). "Stores offering designer dorm gear for the college-bound". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-11-10.
  6. ↑ Bright, Kevin (2000-01-06), The One with the Apothecary Table, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, retrieved 2017-12-08
  7. ↑ Doctoroids. "The Junk Mail". SeinfeldScripts. Retrieved 2017-12-08.
  8. ↑ "The Odd Couple" Oscar, the Model (TV Episode 1970), retrieved 2017-12-08
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