Thank you Patti!

Friday, May 2, 2008
No letup for Rosanna Bowles' home-decor company

Puget Sound Business Journal (Seattle) - by Patti Payne Contributing Writer
W hat do the May editions of Martha Stewart Living, Family Circle and the upcoming summer issue of O at Home have in common? They all feature lifestyle designer Rosanna Bowles, whose Seattle-based business, Rosanna Inc., is internationally hot.

Starting in 1982 in her Montlake home with a $15,000 loan from the former Seafirst Bank, Bowles has grown her business to a successful eight-figure private company, with worldwide distributors and a warehouse in Sodo filled with her tabletop designs. People magazine plans to feature many of her designs in a special gift section. And she will sell several of her collections on TV's Home Shopping Network on June 12. She is employing 25 artisans in Guanajuato, Mexico, who are recycling Coke bottles into artistic glassware, sandblasted with intricate European designs.

Bowles designs everything for tabletops, from flatware to glassware to dishes, serving pieces, vases and more. She sells wholesale to retailers across the world, including some private label retailers such as Nordstrom.

Expect her to expand into Rosanna furniture and Rosanna textiles, and she is in talks with a publisher about a lifestyles book.

The economy is not slowing her. "We're medium price point home wear," she says. "People are nesting more and making their own environment more beautiful."