The Framers Forum

Is it just me, or are pastel coloured mouldings no longer popular. I used find they were reasonably popular a few years ago, but I can't remember when I last sold a pastel coloured frame. I sell plenty of black, white, grey and wood grain finish frames. I'm going to be making up some new moulding display chevrons shortly after Christmas and wondered about producing some new pastel coloured samples to replace some of those which are looking a bit old and dated.

I sell quite a lot of oak frames, which is not particularly surprising with so many really old houses and cottages, plus more than a few barn conversions in my local area. Recently, I have also been creating a few oak driftwood frames as a way of clearing some of my oak off cuts, which sell quite well with a distressed and aged finish.

A lot of the pastel coloured frames used to be chosen for framing items bought while customers were on holiday, but they seem not to be buying quite the same style artworks on holiday as they once were and perhaps this is influencing their choice of mouldings. I'm guessing that some holiday destinations are less popular with news reports of terrorism in some countries, for instance I have not framed an Egyptian papirus for years.

I'm not complaining, particularly because customers are a lot more discerning about the quality of the artworks that they are buying while on holiday and as a result are willing to choose better quality mouldings and therefore are spending more on framing such items. Customers are clearly buying less items to frame while on holiday, quite often these are presents for loved ones and these are often framed to impress the loved ones.

I'd be interested to hear opinions from other members, hopefully to get a better understanding of what I should be able to show my customers. It's not that I'm not getting enough work, but I've been too busy moving home and shop to have the time to get out and about enough to see what's going on outside of my quiet little Devonshire town and don't want to be getting out of touch.

Hardly sell any pastel frames, unless they are almost on the grey spectrum. These days it feels like I could sell a walnut frame for any job.

I know that grey is supposed to be an in colour, but being in an essentially rural area don't seem to go for grey very much. I know what you mean about colours that are almost grey, because I often end up mixing grey with other colours to produce the colour and shade that customers are looking for.

My standard fall back when customers don't know what they want is generally oak and most undecided customers will go for that if the price suits, but there's a limited choice of profiles in oak and that can be a problem when larger profiles are needed.