I think they need to look within themselves and come up with some fresh ideas. I don't see much of anything Isabel Bloom makes that I would want to sit on our mantle at home. I still maintain that it's the designs that are causing the slump in sales. The owners have said that sales are down 30% over the past six years and profitability has shrunk by nearly 75% during the same time. Obviously, a lot of other people must feel the same way. I don't understand the allure of the sculptures. Isabel Bloom's figurines are poured concrete into a cast mold, plain and simple. Now, a sculpture - to me - is something that you make out of your own hands. But, no, it takes special artisans to pour concrete into the molds and to extract the "sculptures" out of the casings, then sand them down by hand. I thought, "Why couldn't they continue to make the molds in Davenport, them ship them over to China and use Chinese concrete?" Actually, I think that's what they were going to do. Secondly, they aren't really sculptures - they're poured concrete into cast molds. First of all, about the only unique feature that Isabel Bloom sculptures have is that they're made in Davenport. I just sort of sat back and chuckled through all of this. People who were longtime Isabel Bloom collectors and buyers said they'd no longer buy the concrete cast sculptures if they were made in China. The decision by the three owners of Isabel Bloom, LLC was nearly unanimously panned throughout the Quad Cities. In a stunning reversal of a decision that was deemed as "irreversible" when the original announcement was made nearly a couple of weeks ago, the owners of the Isabel Bloom sculptures that are made in the Village of East Davenport announced yesterday that they made a monumental mistake and will not be closing their Davenport production facilities and moving operations to China.Īs I posted in a blog from last week, the public outcry from the announcement was enormous.
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