I was just curious - is there a place where I can purchase nice Italian furniture with a discount (say, B&B Italia or Poliform)? I don't mind paying $15k for a sofa but I always think that it's totally a rip off if I buy at full price. Any insight will be highly appreciated.
You can also try to find a friend or a friend of a friend who is an interior designer. Very often these showrooms offer "to the trade" discounts, usually in the range of 10-25%. Or you can wait until they have their floor sample sales (usually March or April, right before ICFF).
Working with designers who get trade discounts can be made to work to your advantage. Palazetti (I may have spelled that wrong) offered 40% of to the trade when I bought for my summer house some years back! That isn't the kind of furniture you mean, but it's an example of what can be done. You would need a designer willing to charge by the hour, with no mark-up on items purchased and with trade discounts passed on to you in full. They exist. Their colleagues who charge markup rates with no discounts passed on will disparage these hourly fee people, but plenty are fully reputable and quite good.
I was just curious - is there a place where I can purchase nice Italian furniture with a discount (say, B&B Italia or Poliform)? I don't mind paying $15k for a sofa but I always think that it's totally a rip off if I buy at full price. Any insight will be highly appreciated.
I read a NYT article a couple of years back about buying Italian furniture online. Check out europebynet.com
You can also try to find a friend or a friend of a friend who is an interior designer. Very often these showrooms offer "to the trade" discounts, usually in the range of 10-25%. Or you can wait until they have their floor sample sales (usually March or April, right before ICFF).
here's the link to the ny times article...
http://www.europebynet.com/europebynet-NyTimes-09-06.html
Working with designers who get trade discounts can be made to work to your advantage. Palazetti (I may have spelled that wrong) offered 40% of to the trade when I bought for my summer house some years back! That isn't the kind of furniture you mean, but it's an example of what can be done. You would need a designer willing to charge by the hour, with no mark-up on items purchased and with trade discounts passed on to you in full. They exist. Their colleagues who charge markup rates with no discounts passed on will disparage these hourly fee people, but plenty are fully reputable and quite good.
Thank you so much for the information, Jess, Nikeswings and Kylewest.