Macy's on State Street presents Trend House 2007 featuring the Metropolitan Home Collection

Since 1937 Macy's Trend House has showcased the latest in furniture trends and luxury décor from top designers worldwide. Macy's on State Street adapted the Trend House concept from Marshall Field's after Federated Department Stores, Macy's parent company, acquired the Marshall Field's chain in 2005. The tradition of offering home furnishings such as furniture, rugs, art and tapestry dates back to the 1880s at legendary retailer Marshall Field's. By 1894, Field's had already established an interior design department. By 1910, when customers visited Marshall Field's State Street store, it was common to view the furniture display houses and rooms of all styles on the eighth and ninth floors of the store. As the Great Depression started to ease for Americans in the latter half of the 1930s, more and more people were looking to replace prior styles in their homes with something new and contemporary.

The Trend House was established as a way for the interior design staff to demonstrate how they could create the best mix of traditional styles with a modern flair, something customers of the post-war period most commonly wanted. Since 1937, the Trend House has featured the latest in furniture and décor trends. Each year, the Trend House design team is headed by a member(s) of the senior interior design staff and, using their professional expertise and experience, the house reflects the upcoming furniture and home trends for the year. In recent years, the Trend House has reflected styles such as a penthouse suite, post-modern revisionist, a country house along a lake and even a log cabin.

The tradition continues with The Metropolitan Home Collection, designed by Benjamin Noriega Ortiz. This exclusive collection focuses on three distinct styles weekend getaway homes, urban loft living and luxury upscale lifestyles. These style groups focus on eclectic lifestyles rather than traditional suites and are rich with powerful jewel-box colors. The Metropolitan Home Collection will be displayed in Macy's Trend House celebrating Chicago's long-standing heritage of contemporary design and architecture, and will be featured in Macy's on State Street's famed window exhibits.

Macy's designers and visual merchandisers have been working throughout the summer to transform the 2,500 square-foot Trend House into designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz's casually glamorous vision of today's contemporary home. Incorporating his use of furnishings as sculptural forms, they become almost architectural in nature, with rooms emerging as living works of art. Today's modern home must be multi-functional on many levels; it is this element that defines the mix of pieces that converge to shape a room's design. We are pleased to introduce this exclusive collection at Trend House 2007, created by Stephen Barnes, senior designer and Sandra Matosic, floor designer of Macy's Interior Design Studio in partnership with Benjamin Noriega Ortiz.

Thanks to...

• Karastan
• Georg Jensen
• Benjamin Moore Paints

Complimentary Self-guided tours of Trend House 2007 with featured interviews with furniture designer Benjamin Noriega Ortiz and Interior Designer Stephen Barnes are available online at visitmacyschicago.com in a MP3 Download File or at Macy's on State Street 7th Floor Visitor Center.