Sami Xia, of Hualian Ceramics, shows off an egg platter in the popular matte finish. She visited Chicago for the first time to attend The Inspired Home Show at McCormick Place, and was impressed by the city. “People are very friendly,” she said. ‘Everyone here is very happy.”
Neil Steinberg/Sun-Times
Hualien is on the eastern coast of Taiwan, a beautiful area of beaches covered in flat, round stones, a short distance from Taroka National Park, its waterfalls and thermal pools tinted a stunning blue due to calcium carbonate leached from limestone in the ground.
I’ve been there, years ago. Not much of a connection but, arriving at McCormick Place Monday and confronting the 360-degree visual overload of The Inspired Home Show, it was enough to point me in the direction of Hualian Ceramics, not immediately noticing the difference between “Hualien” and “Hualian.” I wondered what is new in the world of china.
“Matte glaze is a popular trend,” said Sami Xia, a customer manager at Hunan Hualian China Industry Co.
It took a moment to get my mind around “matte glaze” — it seemed a contradiction in terms, like “dull shiny” — and in that spirit of clarity we should probably address the 2024 show’s new name.
If “The Inspired Home Show” drew a blank, that’s because prior to the 2022 show, it was the International Home + Housewares Show. Of course I had to know how that happened. It’s like changing the name of the Chicago Auto Show to the Impressive Wheels Show.
“The Inspired Home Show name connects not only buyer to seller but also product to lifestyle and the housewares industry to the consumer mindset,” explained Debbie Teschke, senior management in public relations and communications at the International Housewares Association.
Okay then. As an admirer of tangible objects — they have such solidity compared to the evanescent, flapping luna moths of words — I like to go to the show, whatever it’s called, to revel in bowls and cups, mops and sponges.
The show, which wrapped up Tuesday, was smaller this year. Quieter too, vendors agreed, than before COVID, which canceled the 2020 and 2021 shows, “but satisfactory,” said M. Emir Karatas, head of USA sales at LAV, seller of handsome Turkish glassware: little squat teacups crying out for a slug of black tea.
“It feels better,” agreed Lise Schleicher, who runs Basketworks, a Northbrook gift basket company. She attends every year, and regular readers might remember her serving as Virgil to my Dante, guiding me through past shows. She had already prowled the exhibits for a full day — the show opened Sunday — and bird-dogged trends, such as single serving kitchen devices.
We paused to marvel at the Nostalgia MyMini, making a waffle four inches in diameter that wouldn’t satisfy a toddler. And a wedge-shaped Jokari single slice Pizza Skillet. Yes, microwaving can make pizza soggy. But what’s wrong with using a round pan shoved into a hot oven?
Devices for drying stood out. I marveled at a contraption designed to dry narrow water bottles. We paused before a stylish foot dryer; like a hand dryer, but at ankle level.
“Nobody else has it in the world,” said Sotirious Giannoutsos, export sales manager of Veltia, a Spanish company, pointing out they are popular in mosques, where the devout wash their feet before entering. “Sometimes you don’t know you need it until you try it.”
There was much portability. A “Hip Clip” perches your water bottle on your belt. An insulated W10 coffee mug with a power base to charge a phone.
Much pricey reusability in evidence — $9.99 free-standing Stasher sandwich bags. “Long term, it’s a better investment,” claimed a spokesperson. A $12.99 reusable sandwich wrap call Boc’n’Rolls. “Not the best name” its handler admitted.
I try not to get bogged down over semantics and punctuation, but at the inventors’ corner I couldn’t get beyond the lack of a possessive in “Matt Halls Toilet Table,” a plastic oval shelf that attached to a toilet bowl.
Why not “Matt Hall’s Toilet Table’? I asked the inventor, Matt Hall, emphasizing the possessive.
“It didn’t sound right,” he replied. Actually, both versions sound exactly the same, which I started to point out. But moving on is an important skill at the Home + House — err, that is, The Inspired Home Show, so I kept going.
Perhaps I’ve reached that point in life where material objects have lost their allure. But I honestly can say that in three hours of wandering the show, I didn’t see a single item that I’d have wanted to take home if they pressed it on me for free.
But I did come away wiser in the ways of ceramic finish. I stopped at Alleanza Ceramica and was approached by Milena DeStefano. I told her that I understand that matte glaze is hot this year.
“It’s a thing in Brazil,” she said. “We sell a lot.”