There are second acts... By last summer we had given up on Hold Everything. Having taken a pounding from The Container Store as well as other, smaller organizational stores, Hold Everything seemed to have lost it's way. The stores here in NYC were usually empty, depressing and expensive. Parent company, Williams-Sonoma had lost grip on this child. We thought the end might be near....

Then suddenly something happened.

We noticed that the new catalogue looked better. There was new, interesting stuff and there was......can we say it?.......STYLE. We even began to hear it from readers:.....

The new Hold Everything catalog (organizational porn issues aside) seems to have some interesting devleopments... a line of Jonathan Adler holiday stuff, at less-than-Adler sticker prices, some nice (if you believe the photos) new lines of modular furniture (Centro, Harmon, and Archer). I think the catalog itself got a bit of a face-lift. Overall, the whole thing yields a better-than-average net effect...

Someone had gotten hold of a stylist, and we bet someone lost their job. All we can say is Phew! While there is heavy copying from West Elm (whom W-S also owns), and it is still limited, we look forward seeing what happens and maybe even recommending the store again. (Thanks, Patrick!) MGR