Editorials

Hardscape goes to Fashion Week

By Tom Hatlen

I cannot imagine most contractors sponsoring a "Fashion Week" and attending the after-parties, etc. as contractor Charissa Farley does. She has an interesting take on hardscape from the upscale client's perspective.

When these clients (55+ affluent women) think about resurfacing their driveways, their frame of reference often comes from places like fashion week, elite shopping malls, estates of wealthy friends and overseas travel destinations – architecturally sophisticated places with hardscapes to match.

Charissa makes it her business to mix in her client's world to see things from their point of view to understand what they're looking for. In the past this often led to special-ordering architectural hardscape products from overseas or from across the country.

Then the recession came and even those with money became more frugal in spending it. So she got creative, and looked at what she could do with the much more economical concrete pavers produced locally. How could she make them more appealing to her client base?

She worked with her manufacturers to produce special color blends and treatments that produced different textures and different looks. She's installed them in uncommon patterns, and she's installed them upside down.

Her will to find a way to adapt allowed her to "think her way out of the recession" and earned her the top prize for corporate leadership at the Palm Springs Women in Business Awards. Read her story on page 10 of June/July 2014 Hardscape Magazine.

Slick online links

Check out the online version of Hardscape Magazine. It's so slick. When you page thru the online issue, the ads light up. Click on the ad and you go straight to the advertiser's website. It's especially efficient if there's more than 1 advertiser you want to check out.

The HardscapeMagazine.com archives has our past issues since late 2008. Issues since October/November 2012 have the ad links to the advertisers' websites.

Click on "Archive" in the blue bar at the top of HardscapeMagazine.com.
Click on the issue you want, and it opens up.
Click on "next page" at the bottom, or key in a page number in the "Go to" box at the top.
Click on an ad, and you're off to the advertiser's website.