Meet the Dallas Couple Who Transformed the Outdoor Furniture Industry
With Sutherlands and Perennials Fabrics, Ann and David Sutherland have built a multimillion-dollar empire.
The 1970s and ’80s were an unfortunate period for outdoor furniture: curly, cast-iron garden tables and chairs, oversized wicker sectionals, and those webbed aluminum chairs that millennials in Brooklyn now buy to be ironic.
That’s why the ’90s signaled such an important design refresh. Knoll developed outdoor lines. Classic Adirondack chairs were popular. And in Dallas, David Sutherland was creating sleek and stylish outdoor furniture in teak with John Hutton, the storied designer who built his reputation as design director of the luxury brand Donghia. The same John Hutton whom The New York Times described as a “national treasure.”