Pomegranate adds more clothing, moves into Delaware Avenue shop

Ever been to a Pomegranate warehouse sale?

It’s like racing for the University of Kentucky’s Big Blue Madness tickets, but for items such as tablecloths, potholders and placemats with the distinctive prints designed by Pomegranate founder Angela Beck — and increasingly, high-end clothing, bags and shoes that boast luxury fabric and embroidery. It’s like the old McAlpin’s “Moonlight Madness” sales: If you want an item, you better hustle out of your car and make a dash to pick through those treasures.

The next Pomegranate warehouse sale — Nov. 16-19 — will be the company’s first in its new location on Lagonda Avenue off Delaware Avenue. The building, which formerly housed a heating/air conditioning business, now houses a small Pomegranate store, a pale green and white suite of loft offices and an area for a warehouse, packing and monogramming.

The well-attended Pomegranate warehouse sales give the company, founded 22 years ago by Angela Beck, feedback about how its customers see its products. Pomegranate is targeting a particular lifestyle: a woman who is busy, sleek, stylish and enjoys entertaining (the kitchen linens and accessories) and travel (the linen clothing, the newer cashmere-blend clothing and wraps, shoes, bags).

The cashmere items are referred to inside the Pomegranate office loft as “air conditioner sweaters” — thick enough for brisk autumn days, thin enough for days when the air conditioning is a bit too chilling.

The prices are aspirational for some (hence the popularity of the sales), right in the middle of the upscale pack for others: Dresses start in the low $100 range, tablecloths are $52 and up, and bags top out at around $175.

If you’re shopping Pomegranate at its regular prices you won’t bat an eye on full prices of brands such as Anthropologie or Ann Taylor. But Pomegranate is a bit more geared toward a leisurely family lifestyle than those brands, offering some children’s wear in addition to its clothing and linens.

As Beck and Sarah Douglas, product manager and coordinator at Pomegranate, describe it, the company has gone from beach apparel to dressy clothes you could wear to Keeneland — either in the stands (an embroidered maxi dress) or back in the barns (a water-repelling anorak that is in development).

Douglas said that the company sticks with the clothing silhouettes its customers like. The clothes are relaxed, but not bohemian or baggy; casual, but with classic lines and quality fabrics.

The company also has its whimsical side: You’ll find lighthearted towels in dog prints, including pug and hound, as well.

Pomegranate also does a brisk business in equine-themed prints. After all, that’s organic to Beck’s life: She, her husband Antony and their five children live at the family’s Gainesway Farm, which is where Beck used to have her office. Now, her children are older — her oldest, Emma Beck, a Transylvania University student, is now a Pomegranate intern — and Beck is treating herself to her own office in the new Lagonda Avenue complex where she can continue to design prints.

Pomegranate is also exploring offering fabric by the yard in all those much-loved prints. So, if you loved an Indian print from Pomegranate and wanted to cover your kitchen chairs in it or use it for a shade over the sink? The fabric could soon be available.

Pomegranate offers online shopping, but much of its sales are through boutiques and specialty stores. Last week, boxes bound for Germany were waiting in the warehouse. The company sells its stock in stores through the southern and eastern United States and Caribbean/Caribbean resorts. It is also moving into the Midwest.

With only a handful of employees at its Lexington office, the company is also small enough to experiment. In the warehouse, Beck produces some high-end vinyl placemats that can be monogrammed. She lifts a block of peel-off paper placemats in a bold stripe pattern: “Trompe l’oeil,” she murmurs, meaning “fool the eye.”

The company has in the last month moved its offices and warehouse together and will soon open a small store where customers can come in and touch and feel Pomegranate items and see how they can be styled.

“We have had to diversify to stay relevant in the marketplace,” Beck said. “But we know what we like to do, and we listen to customers.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2016 at 11:06 AM with the headline "Pomegranate adds more clothing, moves into Delaware Avenue shop."