Follow Tom & Bobbie Around The World…

96 Hours in Paris, France
January 2013

eifel-tower-snow1Paris 2013,

We left a chilly London before 6 AM, for Paris. Paris was even colder than London with about 1 foot of snow on the ground. We were there primarily to visit two shows, Maison Objet, the most beautiful collection of home products in the world, and the Pret a Porter and Bijhorca Fashion shows. Seeing and studying both shows enables us to stay very close to the styles, colors and trends in a broad range of disciplines. read more…

48 Hours in London, England
January 2013

oxford-stLondon 2013,

January is always a busy month in the gift and home business. We always seem to be juggling many things at once.  Our visual merchandising team, headed by Mark Ross, is traveling across the country to complete our showroom makeovers for the upcoming trade shows. Our in house product development team and art department are completing the Christmas 2013 collection and the sales team is hard at work seeing customers with our over 300 January product introductions. read more…

Madrid, Spain
January 2013

museumMadrid 2013,

We ended up in Madrid for a short stopover from Paris to New York. The bad weather in Europe forced us to travel via Madrid. We arrived at about 11 PM to a beautiful evening. Our hotel was lit up beautiful around a fountain, the Palace Hotel.
One must really love to travel to be in our business. And we do. We love exploring. We took this stop as an opportunity to explore a new city. Neither of us had been to Madrid before, but we only had until 2 PM to explore.. read more…

The journey begins in New Delhi,
June 12th 11:45 pm

newdelhi4New Delhi,

There is no doubt that we just arrived at one of the hottest places that we’ve ever worked. By hot we do not mean trendy hot, but temperature hot. After a 10 hour flight from London we arrived in late evening on the coolest part of the day at 98 degrees. Delhi’s airport just opened a year ago in celebration of the ASEAN Games which took place in October 2011. read more…

 London, England,
2012 Olympics

olympics2London Olympics,

Each year we try to take a family summer vacation. As the kids get older it’s more and more difficult to find one time when they can all get off work. Our eldest son Robbie is working in LA. Our middle daughter Jennifer is a sophomore at Lehigh. Our youngest Dana is going to be a sophomore in High School. Having always loved London we could not resist attending the Olympics this summer. London is the perfect spot for a family vacation with a little of everything to interest all. Moreover, the Olympics are much more than a sporting event, but rather a chance for all cultures the world to interact.read more…

Paris, France,
September 2012

eifleParis 2012,

Paris, here we come. We were off at 6:15 AM for our 9 AM flight to Paris. We made it to Heathrow in 30 minutes and were reviewing our notes in preparation for our afternoon meetings.

In Paris, the major exhibition for design, gift and home products happens twice a year.  The Maison Objet, www.maison-objet.com is in January and September each year. It is by far the most beautiful exhibition of its size in the world. The French have a wonderful way and sensibility for style, and it is shown so wonderfully and creatively at this show.  The show actually opens on Friday, but we typically will attend one day earlier to work on our Tozai Home collection with Jean Charles from Asiatides who supplies many of our products in the Tozai range. read more…