This week in design, shopping for new kitchenware isn’t quite so crucial in Brunswick, Maine, where patrons of the local library can check out items like a tagine pot and a KitchenAid mixer (in chrome or red, no less). Stay in the know with our weekly roundup of headlines, launches, events, recommended reading and more.
Business News
The Trump administration has expanded the list of goods included in its 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, ABC News reports. The new set of levies, which took effect last week, encompass an additional 400 products—including air-conditioning units, space heaters, high chairs, knives and some furniture. How the tariffs affect an item’s final cost depends on how much steel or aluminum it includes: While the steel in a steak knife, for example, would be taxed at 50 percent, the remainder of the item’s value would face only the baseline tariff rate of its origin country. Altogether, the steel and aluminum tariffs now apply to $320 billion worth of goods, up from $190 billion before the expansion.
In other trade news, the “de minimis” tax exemption—which allows packages worth $800 or less to be shipped to the U.S. duty-free—is set to end on August 29. First established in 1938, the rule has paved the way for low-cost e-commerce retailers like Shein and Temu to thrive. For those platforms and U.S. trade at large, the exemption’s repeal will likely have a major impact: In 2024, more than 92 percent of all cargo entering the country—including 1.3 billion packages worth over $64 billion—entered through the de minimis exemption. In response, multiple international postal services have paused certain shipments to the U.S., including those in Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell suggested that an interest rate cut may be announced at the central bank’s meeting next month. At the Fed’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, last week, Powell referenced the contributing factors to the decision: a soft labor market—which remains in a “curious kind of balance,” in his words, with both supply and demand for workers declining—and the risk of tariffs driving up inflation. If the Fed does go through with the cut, it would mark the first such reduction since December 2024. Stocks surged following the news of a potential rate cut, with the S&P 500 up 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq Composite up 1.9 percent by the end of the day, while an index tracking homebuilders jumped nearly 5 percent.
Last week, President Donald Trump announced that Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of Airbnb, will serve as the nation’s first chief design officer, The Hill reports. In his role, Gebbia—who joined the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year and is on the board of Tesla—will lead a new short-term agency, the National Design Studio, with the goal of improving the digital user experience of various government services during Trump’s tenure. Reporting to the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Gebbia will “recruit top creative talent, coordinate with executive departments and agencies and devise innovative solutions,” updating governmental design language to become as “satisfying to use as the Apple Store: beautifully designed, great user experience, run on modern software.” According to the executive order Trump signed to create the new role and studio, the agency will close down in three years.
Century-old Michigan-based furniture manufacturer Howard Miller is following through on last month’s announcement that it would wind down operations, starting with the closure of two facilities in North Carolina, Furniture Today reports. According to a WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act) notice filed two weeks ago, the company plans to close the facilities—a manufacturing plant in High Point and a warehouse in Lexington—and lay off employees between September 28 and November 2, cutting nearly 40 positions in the process. In the coming months, the company will continue closing down, eliminating 133 positions at its Michigan headquarters and plants over the next nine months.
Eastern Pennsylvania home retailer GailGray Home Furnishings and Design is shuttering after 25 years in business, Furniture Today reports. Co-owners Gail Gray Dunn and Carolyn Gagnon announced the news on Facebook last week, but did not cite a reason. The retailer will host a going-out-of-business sale through September 10.
Launches and Collaborations
Together with New York–based skin care, fragrance and candle brand Malin+Goetz, Rocco has debuted a limited-edition version of its Super Fridge in Cherry Tomato red. Tapping into the “tomato girl summer” microtrend, each fridge comes with a bottle of Malin+Goetz’s tomato-scented home spray.
The Loom and Company tapped Atlanta-based designer Jenna Gross, principal of Colordrunk Designs, for the creation of a new rug collection. For the collaboration, Gross employed her trademark use of vibrant color, designing an assortment of pieces in bright hues and expressive patterns.
BenchMade Modern has again teamed up with actress and influencer Eva Amurri, this time for the debut of a bed collection handcrafted in the U.S. The new additions to the Happily Eva After collaboration feature an upholstered headboard and wood rail legs in a walnut finish, and is available in two options: a platform bed, or a standard version with a footboard that mirrors the curves of the headboard.
Showroom Representation
Suzanne Tucker Home is now represented by John Rosselli & Associates in New York. The showroom, located in the D&D Building, will offer the brand’s entire textile collection, which includes an array of colorful styles and geometric patterns.
Luxury textile brand Castel is now represented by Quintus in Los Angeles. Founded in New York in 1999, the brand offers a variety of fabrics sourced from mills across the world with inspiration drawn from far-flung locales—such as the Corsican coast, which influenced Castel’s recent spring debuts.
Recommended Reading
When Nashville designer Allie Harrison posted a TikTok video of a unique chair she designed and crafted herself, she didn’t expect the piece to capture much attention—much less go viral, garnering hundreds of thousands of views. The hard part came when she sought a way to capitalize on the fanfare around her product. For Dwell, Kelly Faircloth explores what it takes to translate a design that’s blown up on social media into a commercially viable product.
With contractor rates continuing to rise in many areas across the country, a growing number of DIYers are opting to take matters into their own hands—with mixed results. For The Wall Street Journal, Owen Tucker-Smith writes about how a spike in the share of homeowners undertaking renovation projects—81 percent in the second quarter of 2025, up from 66 percent in early 2023—has persisted even when the process doesn’t quite go to plan.
In her Atlanta home, content creator Lara Becker has constructed a life-size replica of a college dorm room, right down to the extra-long industrial bed frames and under-the-bed storage. The space serves as a showroom of sorts for her online presence, which is geared entirely toward guiding university students and their parents on back-to-school purchases (in turn, fueling her own business, which is heavily reliant on affiliate links). As Rachel Wharton writes for The New York Times, college students (and their parents) are expected to dish out $88.8 billion on back-to-school shopping this year, as a growing cottage industry of influencers and designers capitalize on dorm decor–specific services.
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