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Business, International

Maison & Objet Releases Barometer of Home Furnishings Industry Health

Maison&Objet Barometer #11 asks how the worlds of decor, design, and lifestyle is doing, surveying more than 1,400 professionals from the Maison&Objet community.

12/1/2025
Maison&Objet barometer graphic
Residential contracts from April through September 2025 were steady or higher in among 70 percent of surveyed specifiers.
 
PARIS -- 2025 began with a struggling global economy: in France, the acceleration of inflation at the end of last year weighed heavily, followed by a decline in purchasing power and a slowdown in new housing construction. On the international front, the introduction of customs duties has reshaped the landscape for exports to the United States. Only the Middle East and Southeast Asia stand out with strong potential, driven by dynamic real estate and tourism development.
 
Questioned twice by Maison&Objet for its first barometer of the year, the international decor, design, and lifestyle industry was focused on a single watchword: foresight. Looking ahead, so as to be as ready as possible in the face of instability, and especially, uncertainty. A few months later, what conclusions are industry professionals ready to draw? Have they managed to stay the course, as they had hoped?
Seven out of ten respondents surveyed in October 2025 were delighted to have a stable volume of business, or one that was rising, between April and September 2025. Compared to the previous year, the proportion of those who maintained their level of sales was actually four points higher, reaching 40% of respondents this year, across all profiles. Looking a bit closer, retailers were the ones who reached a certain equilibrium (9 points higher). But the specifier group contained the largest percentage to have declared a stable level of business over the past six months (45% of them, which was 3 points higher than at the same time last year).

A confident retail landscape
 
Independent boutiques, major retail outlets, and even chain stores welcomed, on average, five new brands into their inventories between April and September 2025. Retailers relied on stronger sales volume of products such as fragrances and wellness items, gifts, and decorative objects. And for good reason, since, in a tense economic climate, such objects bring some pizzazz to consumers’ interiors at a lower cost.

Fifty-six percent of retailers surveyed estimated that their level of product or merchandise inventory was normal. Only 22% of major French names that are part of the Maison&Objet community complained of higher inventory levels at the end of October. This proportion was nearly the same for major international retailers (25%). In contrast, a greater number of independent French retailers (35%) encountered difficulties selling off their inventory.

Nevertheless, 9 out of 10 resellers expect to place orders from now through March 2026, 55% of whom plan to place orders at the same, or even higher, level than last year, proof that they remain confident in the future: 78% of them expressed neutral or positive expectations for their sales figures over the next six months.

A reassuring outlook for brands

On the brand side, merchandise inventories have been considered normal for most, with 62% of them, a 7-point increase compared to October 2024, demonstrating their great agility in terms of inventory management.

Brands are banking on remaining energized over the next six months, since 87% of them expect to launch new products over this period. Though they do expect reassuring signals from the market, 78% of brands have expressed positive or neutral expectations for sales figures for October 2025 through March 2026.

Opportunities worth seizing in design projects
 
What about the status of specifiers since the last Maison&Objet barometer? Business for architects, real estate developers, and landscape architects is holding steady, with an average of five new projects or worksites taken on between April and September 2025.

A modest, but real rebound for residential projects

Forty percent of specifiers state that they had the same number of residential contracts from April through September 2025 as they had for the same period in 2024. The number of French specifiers involved here is up by 5 points over last year, which signals that residential contracts may be making a slight comeback in France, and the number was up 4 percentage points for international respondents. Thirty-one percent of specifiers were also delighted to have signed a higher number of residential projects over the past six months.

A stable situation for commercial or office projects
 
In terms of retail design projects, the business has not seen any big changes. Fifty-one percent of professionals surveyed stated that, over the past six months, they had the same number of projects (32%) or a greater number of projects (19%) than last year at the same time. But positive signs are starting to be visible. According to global corporate real estate advisory firm Savills, investment in retail made a strong comeback early in the year: 1.3 billion euros were injected into the system in the first quarter in France, in other words, a rise of 239% in a single year, which could soon open up new opportunities for specifiers positioned on this market for retail spaces. “The year 2025 marked the renaissance of retail: investors are once again confident in this sector”, reaffirms Jessica Jaoui, Director of the Retail Investment Department at JLL.

On a global scale, the pace varies according to the type of project and the geographic zone. According to Mordor Intelligence, interior design firms should see commercial projects reach an annual growth rate of a bit more than 10% from now through 2030. Asia-Pacific and the Middle East will be the most dynamic regions.

Fifty-two percent of specifiers state that they’ve had the same number as, or more, projects than they had last year for the office and workspace market. After a lower level of business in 2024, due to the drop in requests for office construction permits and the existing pipeline of new construction, specifier business has shown slight signs of stabilization, or even of recovery, this year in France, primarily driven by the impetus of office spaces of over 1,000 m2. This trend is also being confirmed internationally. The challenges of this sector remain, at the level of small office spaces, which are mainly occupied by very small firms and SMEs that are most impacted by the current economic environment.
 
Hospitality: A market boosted by major firms
 
In the restaurant sector, 43% of specifiers have recorded identical or higher levels of business from April to September 2025, compared to last year.

The challenges faced by French restaurateurs, especially independent ones, notably in terms of footfall, explain, for the most part, the slowdown in business for design professionals. Nevertheless, the network of food service establishments continues to grow, notes Food Service Vision, but is being driven by fast-food concepts that tend to invest little in decor and design. Growth is also happening internationally, where the market should reach nearly 4.030 billion dollars this year, compared to 3.480 billion dollars in 2024, according to the Restroworks platform.

In terms of hotels, 54% of professionals surveyed by Maison&Objet say that, over the past six months, they have had the same level (7 points higher) or even a higher number of projects than last year. And this is true whether they’re based in France (54%) or internationally (52%). In terms of the size of firms, the biggest ones, which have at least 10 employees, are showing a healthy level of business activity, which contrasts with those that employ fewer than 10 persons, which are seeing a drop in business. This makes sense, due to the fact that the growth of hotel networks is mostly coming from hotel chains, which have accelerated the pace of openings throughout the world after the COVID pandemic.

One example of this is Accor Group, which, last year, opened nearly 300 hotels throughout the world, and the figure was 180 for Marriott International. For its part, Hilton announced a record number of contracts signed for 2024-2025, coupled with many openings. These big industry names are entrusting their highly strategic design projects to firms of a certain size.

The variety of encouraging prospects for design projects is fostering optimism among specifiers in the Maison&Objet community. For the six months to come, 82% of them do indeed say that they feel neutral or positive about their sales outlook for this period.
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