Highland Court Fabrics

Combining lasting designs with emerging innovative talent, Duralee is one of the interior design industry’s most exciting fabric brands.  The company began, aptly enough, when the country’s pulse quickened. 
DurableReturning from World War II, Lenny Silberman faced changing times.  The world was inching in a different direction, and by 1947 it was already evident to Silberman, as he walked the streets of New York, that the future “was what you made it,” he asserts.  Never subtle, Silberman answered an ad in The New York Times promising “a HUGE opportunity” as a textile shipping clerk for $35 a week, landed the job, and went to night school to expand his industry knowledge and learn the fine art of selling. Together with his two partners - Sig Rosenberger and Marshall Kutz - and seven other hands-on employees, Silberman launched Duralee in 1952 from an office smaller than most modern-day walk-in closets.
On the road for six months at a clip, each fabric sale began with the librarian, keeper of the sample books.  The consummate salesman, Silberman expanded sales territories with his belief that excellent customer service is paramount, an ideal that has carried through to today’s sales force.
As design centers opened in the 1970’s, Duralee knowingly entered in, and by 1991, the company was purveying fabrics to more than 40 countries.  Silberman spearheaded the expansion of Duralee into hospitality and contract markets in the 1990s, a division that his daughter, Amy Silberman-Benjamin, Senior Vice President, now heads.  Lee Silberman, a nephew, assumed the role Executive Vice President, and currently leads the export division, expanding the brand’s presence worldwide. Marty Rosenberger, son of founding partner Sig, has been with the firm for over 40 years and now holds the title of President. 
In creating core values of value-driven ingenuity and cutting-edge products while maintaining personalized customer service not often offered by competitors, Duralee has become a household name in the world of interiors.  The Duralee product line maintains a captivating persona that is constantly evolving.  With the establishment of its own design studio in New York’s Chelsea district, Duralee has grown to include proprietary patterns with a fresh and fun, yet chic design aesthetic, and in 1999, trimmings were introduced as a complement to the expanding fabric collections.
Recognizing the talents of their design clientele, Duralee has aligned themselves with budding and established designers to create a series of licensed collections.  When choosing to work with a designer, they do so not necessarily for their name, but for their ability to reinforce the Duralee design style with fabrics that are punctuated with their individuality.  The Duralee Designers range from the bold Thomas Paul and expressive Eileen Kathryn Boyd to the fresh traditional designs of Tilton Fenwick and the exotic aesthetic of John Robshaw -- who also holds the distinction of the company’s first licensed furniture collaboration.
Diversification to reach new clientele spurred brand and line expansion, and with the addition of Highland Court in 2001, Duralee was poised to enter the high-end market.  Artisanal, with luxe style, superb craftsmanship, and rich textures in sophisticated palettes from the finest mills, Highland Court has earned an industry reputation for attainable luxury.  In 2008, Highland Court introduced their first licensed collection with designer Philip Gorrivan, whose follow-up collection hit the market in January 2011.
The continued success of Highland Court has since led to the growth of additional product offerings for the high end spectrum. With the purchase of B. Berger in 2012, Duralee acquired the archives for Bailey & Griffin. The company has since revived the brand with a series of collections featuring Bailey & Griffin’s signature hand-screened prints and rich, traditionally-styled wovens.
Further distinguishing the value of luxury, the DF Monogram brand umbrella was born in 2015. DF Monogram offers designers a destination and designation for high-end product lines that traverse all design styles. Represented under the DF Monogram canopy are Highland Court, Bailey & Griffin, and U.K.-based Clarke & Clarke, as well as new additions James Hare, and Lulu DK.  Each of the lines feature distinctive styling that fulfill their own niche in the luxury market.
In 2003, Duralee introduced Duralee Furniture.  With a full-staff of professional craftsmen in their furniture facility in Morganton, North Carolina, Duralee was the first in the fabric industry to create their own furniture in-house.  Proudly made in America, Duralee Furniture offers exceptional quality with customizable options for optimal versatility. In addition to furniture, the company has continued to prove its commitment to becoming a one-stop shopping destination for the interior design community with the addition of its own proprietary line of drapery hardware.
Duralee caters to the nuances essential to interior designers, and does so with a complete lack of flash or pretense.  No one is averse to answering phones or attention to detail.   The company’s headquarters in Hauppauge, NY, as modest and unassuming as the staff, belies Duralee’s position as a major mover and shaker in the creative class from New York to Los Angeles.  Self-satisfaction is the enemy of creativity, so perhaps the anything-but-smug attitude from the top down is no surprise.
Duralee demonstrates innovation through long-lived product lines synonymous with quality and in the empire that continues to be built.  From Duralee to DF Monogram, the firm’s main fabric divisions offer variously priced lines targeted at a diverse customer base, achieving the perilous balance between the informal and the chic and producing product that is destined to reside in million dollar mansions as well as someone’s first home.  Duralee furniture and many Duralee fabrics fly under the tagline “Made in the USA” and assiduously are.  The company also imports from more than 45 countries.  From the modest one-room office, the company has grown to include the corporate offices on Long Island, warehouses and factories in Morganton, NC, 12 corporate showrooms, 70 agent showrooms nationwide, and 41 international agent showrooms, including a presence in emerging markets.  That boils down to over 26,000 SKUs of fabrics, thousands of furniture SKUs and hundreds of employees.
Future efforts continue to focus on developing original product, along with utilizing emerging technology in an effort to enhance its already exceptional customer service.  A company built on the foundations of customer service continues to support its expanding product lines by friendly, knowledgeable customer service representatives and one of the industry’s most extensive networks of professional sales representatives.  Typical of the company’s design legacy, Duralee deftly merges the contradictions of a family-run and oriented business and an established brand with the progressive cultivation of new and emerging design talent and ideas.  The company sees these times as the beginning of a new era, another opportunity for huge optimism, clear thinking and ultimately renewed creativity in the design industry as a whole.