Has any nation’s design industry been spared the economic carnage of the COVID-19 pandemic? Probably not. But despite the shutdown orders, temporary factory closures, and a precipitous drop in demand as some projects are put on hold, design brands in Spain are open for business, with products available for specification, especially here in the United States.
The pandemic has been a particularly cruel twist for Spanish design brands. After weathering the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis, both of which hit Spain’s economy hard, the country was finally on the rebound when countries around the world began locking down this spring. “It’s a real slap in the face,” says Carlos Galtier, the director of Interiors from Spain, a promotional department of the Trade Commission of Spain in New York.
Despite the uncertainty of our moment, many Spanish brands are still able to make products available here in the US, in part because of how they responded to the last crisis. When Spain was hurting particularly hard, the nation’s high-end interiors brands explored new markets, especially in North America, where many expanded, open- ing showrooms, warehouses, and subsidiary brands. In the last ten years the Spanish design presence in the US market has doubled, according to Spanish trade commissioner Bruno Fernandez Scrimieri. In some sectors, such as lighting and tile, growth has been even stronger; Spanish tile exports to the U.S. have quintupled in value over the last ten years.
“Passengers are not allowed to travel internationally, but cargo is moving,” says the commissioner. “However, it’s slower and we have seen a steep increase in shipping costs.” Brands that have U.S. warehouses are stocked with enough product to last several months with minimal disruption. A common refrain among Spanish design brands right now is that virtually everything in their catalogues is still available, and the real problem is getting projects started up again so designers can start specifying and ordering product.