The Material Girls were recently invited to a preview of the latest product launch from Shaw Floors, a new and innovative line of carpet called Tigressa.  As part of the exclusive sneak peek event, I got to experience Tigressa up close and personal – and it lives up to it’s name as being both soft and strong.  Tigressa has a unique fiber shape to create an ultra-soft texture and the advanced yarn engineering produces a pleasant, luxurious touch with superior durability.  Having grown up in the carpet industry, I can attest to this being the softest carpet I have ever felt.  The experience of this event had a very personal impact on me.  I was practically born into the carpet manufacturing industry since my father was president of a division of a local, Southern California based carpet mill called ETC/Westweave Carpet Mills (which later expanded to Western Solutions, and acquired Sunweavers & El Dorado).  The carpet mill is no longer around but through-out my life I was familiar with the “big guys” in the south – that being Shaw.  In fact, some years ago my father along with the former president of ETC Carpet Mills (Paul Reznikoff) had dinner with Bob Shaw in Dalton, Georgia.  To actually have been able to take a trip out and experience the mill in person was really, truly very exciting for me!

For the two day event, myself along with other attendees, got to stay at the beautiful Barnsley Gardens Resort just outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

The first day began with an evening cocktail hour and dinner introducing us to the new product line where we got to see the many colors and textures of Tigressa carpet.

The preview and dinner event was held at the Ruins located at the Barnsley Gardens Resort.

Attendees experiencing Tigressa up close and personal.

Group photo of the attendees which included fellow bloggers, writers, the flooring industry, and Shaw Carpet Mills.  (I am about the 3rd row back, on the far left, in black.)

Over dinner I got the opportunity to sit next to celebrity guest speaker Amy Devers (of  TLC’s hit show Trading Spaces) who was a fantastic and engaging speaker. Amy enlightened us on her personal stories with carpet (such as loving carpet in the bathroom – yes, that’s correct – the impracticality of carpet in the bathroom, something I would never recommend to my own clients but Amy loves the feel and I can relate since I grew up with carpet everywhere – including the bathroom – that’s the life of having a dad in the carpet business, wall to wall carpet in each and every room!)

{the next day…}

We headed to Dalton, GA to visit the facilities of Shaw Carpet Mills which included an overview of the carpet manufacturing process and the technical aspects of carpet. (I will have much more to report on this in upcoming posts.)

It was such a great expereince to meet up with other bloggers and I enjoyed getting to know everyone!

We got the opportunity to visit the design studios of Shaw and create design boards ourselves.

Donning goggles, we toured the manufacturing facilities, which included the tufting machines and the yarn dying process. Even though I had seen this many times before, Shaw certainly has some advancements when it comes to their manufacturing process and carpet quality.

Sporting (personalized!) lab coats we toured the technical facilities of Shaw where all the product testing is done.

The afternoon finished with one last look at the Tigressa line of carpet and it’s availability to the market brought to us by Flooring America and Carpet One.

As part of the promotion, proceeds from Tigressa Carpet purchases will benefit the “Save The Tigers” fund.  For all Tigressá sales made between May 16 and August 20, 2010, they’ll donate a portion of the proceeds to the National Fish and Wildlife Federation’s Save the Tiger Fund (STF). STF sponsors effective efforts to stop the killing of wild tigers, enabling them to recover and flourish, and empowers local people to live in balance with natural resources, providing tangible benefits to them whenever possible.

Thanks to Empower MediaMarketing for putting together such a fabulous event! They kept to a great schedule and every last detail was flawless!

{Photos by Jill Seidner}