Hide and Seek: Kyle Bunting Rugs

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Kyle Bunting wakes at dawn to race in front of a freight train. With a three- and five-year-old to help get off to school, over a hundred emails crowding his inbox by the time he rises, and the square footage of the cowhide rugs, upholstery and wall coverings his company produces up 70% over last year, he just might be the busiest man in the leather business. This day will see him answering questions pouring in from around the globe, managing a staff of 18, and determining next steps for the development of new products.

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“I’m up at first light, trying to stay ahead of it all,” he says. “But I’ll still be home at 5:30 on the dot to have dinner with my family.”

Whether the mission is personal or professional, Bunting radiates an intense passion for it as well as a clear-mindedness about what he needs to do to deliver the innovations he’s set out to achieve. In an industry rife with obscure terminology (C.O.M.—come again?), notoriously slow lead times, and an often indecipherable morass of price options, Kyle Bunting stands out from the herd by offering compelling alternatives to standard (some might say anachronistic) modes of operation.

In his company, there’s single, simple moniker for hair-on-hide in all its many iterations—hide. With 70 different versions of the material in his swatch book, he offers the industry’s largest array of colors and options; lead times of no more than six to eight weeks; a single price per square foot, whatever the pattern, color, or size of the design; and a firm commitment to customization.

“We are design neutral,” says Bunting. “What we say is ‘let’s roll up our sleeves and develop it together. We believe that the doors should be wide open and that we should be collecting the different ways that people have of envisioning our product.”

Whether Bunting’s vanguard no-nonsense perspective stems from his Texan origins or the extensive business experience he gained before launching his hide company is anyone’s guess, but the precedents he is establishing with his design enterprise may well end up transforming the way other manufacturers of to-the-trade products operate. Prior to initiating Kyle Bunting, he was a partner in a media firm that packaged and sold in-flight programming advertising. After the company was sold to Ziff Davis in 1998, Bunting moved on to flipping San Francisco real estate and was “bitten by the design bug.” “I was exposed to the showrooms and began thinking about starting a design-related business.”

What came to mind were childhood memories of helping his father sell his homemade hide mosaic tables from booths at outdoor events. “The idea for reinventing hide products struck in the middle of the night and it wasn’t long before I was flying across country to pick my Dad’s brain,” Bunting recalls. “Armed with his knowledge and some leather scraps, I set up a studio in San Francisco and eventually cracked the code for the method we use now. Twentieth, an L.A. gallery, and the De Sousa Hughes showroom in San Francisco put my prototypes out on their floor and orders started coming in.”

Fast-forward four years to 2008:

“Last year we produced 40,000 square feet of product and created over 2500 strike-offs,” says Bunting. “I’m utterly passionate about hide. It’s not only gorgeous and sustainable; it’s also functional.”

He points out that hide can also provide an aesthetic counterpoint for cool modernist environs by offering up warmth and texture in a near-white tone.

Today, the company uses high-grade Italian hides, makes every product in its Austin-based headquarters, and is represented by multiple showrooms, ranging from David Sutherland and John Brooks to De Sousa Hughes. The wares are also available internationally through representatives in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Auckland, Dubai, London, Tokyo, and Germany.

In a scant four years, the company has created products for both residential and contract projects in 18 different countries. “I aim to be the designers’ definitive resource for solutions involving hide,” says Bunting. From the looks of things, he very much is.

His client list reads like a Who’s Who in design and includes such names as Kerry Joyce, Cheryl Rowley, McAlpine Booth & Ferrier and Emily Summers as well as large architectural firms, Rockwell Group and Gensler. Bunting products have outfitted the homes of Hollywood celebrities, New York Yankees, and Middle Eastern emirs among others.

Given the Bunting philosophy of shaping the line with the designer clients’ input, the company’s products reflect highly distinctive sensibilities—these are conveyed in the over 600 hundred images featured on the Kyle Bunting website. “The site is a great resource that helps fuel new inspiration for using our material,” says Bunting.

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“Two things keep me going,” he adds. “The first is that our customers are consistently positive about their experience of working with us. The second is that they continuously say that our product line is among the most unique out there.”.

Among the firm’s recent out-of-the-ordinary creations: a six-foot-wide, 36-feet-long red hide rug produced in ten days flat for an opening party at Jonathan Browning lighting. “They intend to keep it on hand and roll it out for other occasions,” Bunting says. If he has his way, red carpet events will never look the same.

Images Coutesey of Kyle Bunting Rugs.

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