Issue #00015: February 19th, 2026

Hello readers,

I just read a Harvard Business Review article by UC Berkeley researchers who found that people who have voluntarily adopted generative AI are working more hours than before, not fewer.

I’ll put my hand up: this is me.

This week I connected Claude directly to our business management software. Now I can ask the AI questions about our numbers in plain English: how are we tracking against last February? Where are the gaps? What needs attention? I get answers instantly, and the boring parts of my job, the formula-hunting and data-cleaning that used to eat my Tuesday afternoons, are handled. This has left space for thinking, plotting, and building. I’m doing more of that than ever.

It’s also freed me up for more side missions. This newsletter being the most obvious one. While Mr. Thread is entirely human researched and written by our small team, it wouldn’t exist without AI taking care of all the monotony. Some people are still sitting around worrying about AI stealing their jobs, but for the majority, AI is just taking care of the busywork that gets in the way of the fun stuff.

The creators who figure out how to use this newfound capacity for work that actually requires taste, judgment, and relationships will own the next decade. Mark my words: A new human Renaissance is coming, and there’s never been a better time in history to be involved in creative businesses.

As Carnevale wraps up in Venice and Mardi Gras fades out in New Orleans, Lent arrives right on cue, the official signal that the parade is over and it’s time to get back to business. This has been a busy news week and there’s lots to unpack, including a Mr. Thread From the mind of with the brilliant and kind Andrea Favaretto Rubelli, CEO of Rubelli. More From the mind of’s will follow—so you if you have anyone you want to see featured, let us know. 

So let’s get into it. Keep reading to find out why Pinterest is struggling, why your sofa says more about you than your star sign, and why the ultra-wealthy are spending $10 million on home security.2

Also, this week we are psyched to present our first game, hosted by Mr. Needle! Make sure you scroll down to the bottom to play. We hope you enjoy it!

See you next week.

Swipe right on good taste
Hinge just added “A dream home must include” as a profile prompt for online daters—and House Beautiful reports that users who engage with it are 39% more likely to go on an actual date. Turns out design taste is a better compatibility signal than star signs.

This makes complete sense to me. Walk into someone’s home and you know everything: what they value, how they live, whether they’re a maximalist or a minimalist, whether they cook or just own pots. Designers have been reading people this way for decades. And anyway, a shared love of conversation pits beats a shared love of brunch or movies every time.

Joy is good ROI
A new Thumbtack survey has a number every designer in business development should memorize: 76% of homeowners are now decorating for themselves rather than prioritizing resale value. House Beautiful reports that 31% of homeowners plan to spend over $10,000 on home projects this year—led by outdoor pools, home gyms, built-in bookcases, and hobby rooms. Hot tub requests are up 135%. Over 40% of millennials say they’re willing to lose money on a renovation if it makes them happier.

The client chasing resale value makes conservative choices. The client designing for joy hires you for your ideas, not your predictability. Present your most interesting work to attract more of these clients.

Open concept, case closed?
Interior designer Krysta Gibbons of Kipling House Interiors built her own family home in St. Paul, Minnesota, as a direct argument against open-plan orthodoxy—and it’s working. Homes & Gardens profiles a house designed to emulate a 1920s New England Colonial, complete with formal dining room, butler’s pantry, and deliberate vestibules.

The result: guests routinely ask when they did the remodel, mistaking the new build for a century-old home. The home boasts sixteen wallpapers, a three-stone checkerboard entry floor combining Carrara, Crema Marfil, and limestone, and a kitchen inspired by “the working kitchens of estates from the turn of the century.” Rooms designed for a purpose hold their meaning longer than zones designed for flexibility. The clients spending serious money on renovations right now want rooms, not zones.

Bottle it
The super brains at MIT have just figured out how to turn recycled plastic into structural floor trusses for housing, potentially solving one of the construction industry’s biggest environmental problems. Dezeen reports that the MIT HAUS research group 3D-printed construction-grade trusses from a composite of recycled PET plastic (mostly recycled bottles mixed with glass fibers). What they made can withstand more than 4,000 pounds before buckling, exceeding US building standards.

It’s not production-ready yet, but keep an eye on this innovation. Would love to see a lot more of this in the luxury soft goods market. If the most creative brands can make recycled fabrics beautiful, it could be a magnificent solution to one of earth’s most dire problems.

Security: the latest renovation niche
The Wall Street Journal has published a poignant piece this week—and it has serious implications for the design industry:

In Surfside, Florida, the developer of the Delmore—a planned 37-unit ultra-high-end condominium designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, with units priced up to $200 million—has engaged a Washington, D.C., firm founded by a former US Marine Scout Sniper to design the building's security systems. It includes biometric access and iris scanning. Companies offering personal security benefits to CEOs increased 10% between 2023 and 2025, per a Goldman Sachs survey.

Security architecture is moving from bolt-on to built-in. The clients spending at the top of the market want this conversation. This could be the niche that changes your design business.

2026: the year of more
Luxe Interiors + Design’s annual trends report is out, and the consensus is clear: maximalism is a permanent shift. This won’t come as a surprise to regular Mr. Thread readers, but listen to what these designers are telling Luxe:

Atlanta’s Bradley Odom of Studio Dixon Rye calls it “an honesty of form—spaces that feel masterfully mixed and effortlessly lived-in.” Multiple designers point to specialty paint finishes like lacquer and plaster as the next frontier in surface treatment. Clients want rooms that feel personal, layered, and permanent. Nobody is predicting a return to beige. Not a single soul.

Andrea Favaretto Rubelli leads Rubelli, the historic Venetian luxury textile firm founded in the 19th century. Son of president Alessandro Favaretto Rubelli, he serves as co-CEO with his brother Nicolo. I’ve known Andrea for years. His company represents the very best of culture, creativity and commerce. So much to learn from this wise man!

As a fifth-generation businessman, why do you think so many creative people are not very good at the business side?
It’s not that they’re not intelligent enough to get it; they just get bored by it. It’s not true for all creatives. There are exceptions, but here’s what I think: If you’re a great creative, you’re not necessarily a great businessman, but those who are, I think, are the best entrepreneurs.

Why is velvet having such a major moment right now?
Velvet comes and goes. It’s a normal cycle of interior design trends. Velvet, I think, is the most noble of all textiles. We still have four of the looms that my great-great-grandfather, five generations ago, acquired in 1889, and they’re still operating in our mills. So we have velvet in our DNA, in our blood. I think velvet is trendy now because somehow people are very sensitive. In a way, people are going back to the things that are safe. It makes you feel like you’re safe, you’re soft, you’re surrounded, you’re wrapped. Nothing can happen to you when you’re sitting in a good velvet chair.

Other than your historic looms, how else do you preserve the Rubelli traditions?
Well, we have the Rubelli Foundation, where we keep our tradition and our history alive. So half of what we do is looking back and preserving our traditions, and half of what we do is to innovate, find new processes, invent new textures, and do something that hasn’t been done before—but is somehow inspired by a tradition.

What’s the biggest misconception designers have about using high-end textiles?
Well, the biggest misconception is about performance. “Oh my goodness, it’s delicate. It’s gonna wear out.” But it’s not just about when the fabric ages and looks worn out, but how it ages and how it looks worn out. I always think of Iris Apfel, who used to be a big client of Rubelli—she’s a person who became better with age—like a silk velvet, she aged so beautifully, becoming more and more enchanting.

What is it about Italian craftsmanship that consistently produces products considered “the best” in their category? I’m thinking Ferrari cars, , Rubelli velvet, even La Marzocco espresso machines.
Well, thank you. It’s something that we have in our DNA to build things that last and to build things that are beautiful, that taste good, because we grow up in this environment that is so particular. We’re a small country, there’s not room for everything and everybody. We have a very high cost of energy, so we pay a lot of attention to what we do with it, and the cost of labor is very high. So those who target the high end of the market have usually more success than those who target mass markets. If you make things in Italy better, make the best of what you do, you can succeed.

What color or trend are you seeing in luxury interiors right now?
It was blue a few years ago. Right now, we’re seeing more demand for green.

Where do you like to go in Venice to have a coffee and think?
Well, you know our habits in coffee are like, you stand, you drink coffee, and you go away. That’s our way of having coffee. I never sit down to have a coffee, really. But if you want to get inspired, if you want to think, there are a lot of great places you can go. I love going by boat. I like rowing, which is a great thing to do in Venice. That’s my favorite thing, to go out and “wash my brain,” and think creatively.

What’s the best piece of business advice anyone has ever given you?
You have to think every day when you wake up, what is the reason for your company to be there? What makes you unique? Why does the world need you?  You need to do things that people will buy every day, and they can’t buy from your competitor. The market doesn’t need followers. The market needs lighthouses. A lighthouse you can recognize from far away, that, I think is a very important point in business strategy.

Mr. Thread watches the stock market, so you don’t have to.

Wayfair is back in growth mode
Here’s a pleasant surprise. The online furniture giant just posted $12.5 billion in 2025 sales—up 5.1%—its first annual gain since 2020, beating Wall Street on both revenue and profitability. Adjusted EBITDA hit $224 million. Looks like value-seeking consumers who like affordable (I say disposable) furniture are spending again. For an industry that’s been white-knuckling it through a brutal housing market, this is a signal worth watching.

Toll brothers is building our pipeline
Let’s take a look at Toll Brothers, America’s leading luxury homebuilder. They construct high-end single-family homes across the country with average prices nudging $1 million. Their fiscal first quarter was strong—profit of $210.9 million, up from $177.7 million a year earlier, with revenue jumping 15% to $2.15 billion. The company holds 75,000 lots and expects community count to grow 8%–10% annually through 2026 and beyond, with average delivered home prices hovering around $980,000. That’s a lot of luxury interiors waiting to be designed. When the country’s premier luxury homebuilder is sitting on that kind of inventory and projecting steady growth, designers should be paying attention. New Toll Brothers homes don’t furnish themselves.

Frozen out
Home sales fell 8.4% in January, the biggest monthly drop since February 2022. Sales landed at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million, per the National Association of Realtors. Economists had forecast a 4.6% decline but January delivered worse news. Snowstorms, shaky consumer confidence, and a rising median home price of $396,800—all kept buyers on the sideline. NAR chief economist Dr. Lawrence Yun was measured about it: “The decrease in sales is disappointing. The below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation this January make it harder than usual to assess the underlying driver.” That’s diplomat-speak for: we don’t know if this is the snow or something deeper.

The Wall Street Journal reports that homes are sitting 46 days on market, up from 41 a year ago. Mortgage rates at 6.1% aren’t getting buyers excited. Two-thirds of 2025 buyers paid below listing price. Florida dominates the distress list—Realtor.com flags Kahului-Wailuku, Hawaii (down 8%), Napa (down 7.1%), and Cape Coral (down 6.2%) among the sharpest declines, driven largely by skyrocketing insurance costs in wildfire-exposed markets. 

For designers, homes sitting longer mean clients with more time to invest in where they’re staying. Watch the spring numbers.

Kering’s painful reset
We track luxury fashion closely. What happens to the runway soon affects the showroom. Kering’s 2025 results were rough: revenue is down 10% to €14.7 billion, operating income is off 33%, and Gucci—the group’s engine—continues to drag them down, sliding 19% to €6.0 billion. There were some bright spots: Bottega Veneta grew 3%, Saint Laurent held a 20% margin, and jewelry brands Boucheron and Qeelin posted double-digit Q4 gains. Q4 overall was only down 3%—a meaningful improvement. The reset appears real. So watch this space.

Who let the bots in?
You might have seen Claude’s Super Bowl campaign, featuring ordinary AI chats hijacked by predatory “sponsored” suggestions. The joke landed because ChatGPT has made it real. OpenAI just opened its platform to advertisers, and big brands are lining up.

The Verge reports that Target, Williams-Sonoma, Adobe, HelloFresh, Ford, Mazda, and Audemars Piguet are among the first advertisers in OpenAI’s pilot. Ads hit free users and subscribers to the $8/month Go plan. Paid subscribers stay clean—for now. Williams-Sonoma says it plans to “surface relevant, high-quality products” at “decision-making moments.” That’s a polished way of saying: catch someone prompting about kitchen design and sell them a Le Creuset Dutch oven.

OpenAI is essentially conceding the browse-to-purchase pipeline belongs to AI now. Google built an empire on the moment between intent and action. OpenAI is coming for that gap. For design brands, the question isn’t whether to show up in AI search results—it’s what it’s going to cost you to appear there, and what happens to your brand when a rival, or worse, a dupe, outbids you for the top spot.

Wayfair CEO on AI
Furniture Today’s Ray Allegrezza sat down with Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah and came away with a line worth keeping: “Furniture has always rewarded taste and experience. The next decade will reward math. And math rarely loses to intuition.”

The details back it up. Wayfair’s generative-AI tool lets customers upload a room photo and restyle it instantly, and every item is shoppable. Ka-ching. More importantly, multimodal AI now validates supplier product data against imagery, cutting the costly “it looked bigger online” return cycle.

My view: the designers and brands who combine deep client relationships with AI-assisted efficiency will eat everyone else’s lunch. The rest compete on price. That’s a race nobody wants to win. 

Pinterest gets the blues
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Pinterest projected first-quarter revenue of $951–$971 million, missing Wall Street’s consensus of $981 million. Shares dropped more than 13% in after-hours trading. The company laid off hundreds of workers in late January to shift focus toward AI products, and is now down more than 28% for the year.

Pinterest facilitates 80 billion monthly searches and recently launched “Pinterest Assistant,” marketed as the first AI-powered, visual-first shopping collaborator. How ironic. Pinterest has been the visual discovery platform for interior design for over a decade, and it’s struggling just as AI is making visual discovery more powerful than ever. Someone is going to own this space. Right now, it isn’t Pinterest.

Rise of the micro-collabs
André Mellone—14 years running Studio Mellone, clients including Lauren Santo Domingo and Rockefeller Center—just launched his first-ever product line with Stockholm’s Nordic Knots. The collection comprises four rugs. That’s not a typo. Just four rugs.

Pond, Indore, Dots, and Normandie—the last inspired by a striped plaid rug Mellone spotted aboard the legendary Art Deco ocean liner SS Normandie while tumbling down a YouTube rabbit hole. “I dream about it—I know every corner of that ship,” he told Wallpaper*. (Prices start at £995/$1,343.)

In an industry drowning in product, restraint is the most radical move you can make. This is the micro-collab done right.

Havenly strikes again
Havenly has agreed to acquire The Expert in an all-equity deal—terms undisclosed, reported by Business of Home’s Fred Nicolaus. I’ve been watching The Expert closely since launch, so let me give you the real download on this.

The Expert started as something genuinely interesting: an invitation-only platform where the best designers in the business could sell an hour of their time. A 55-minute Zoom with a top-tier designer for $750 to $1,500. For designers, it was side-hustle income that paid for a Hamptons weekend or a business class ticket to the Paris flea market. For the platform, it was a way to build the most exclusive roster in the industry.

Then came the marketplace. The moment The Expert introduced commerce (selling bath mats and candle holders alongside consultations), the incentive structure shifted. It stopped being about elevating the designers and started being about moving products.

Then came the final sell-out, the Havenly acquisition. Havenly CEO Lee Mayer was direct enough:

The thing is, the designers who staked their reputations on The Expert did so precisely because it was exclusive. Havenly, for all its acquisitions, is a consumer business. If I was the brand manager for a top AD100 designer on that platform, I would call this penny wise and pound foolish. I know the financial reality of this industry—designers who appear wealthy on the outside are sometimes deeply in debt, stretched thin between the lifestyle they’re exposed to and the money they’re actually paid. But there’s a cost to being available for $750 an hour when your day rate is supposed to be immeasurable.

For me, this acquisition is the death blow to The Expert ever becoming the high-end marketplace it could have been. And let’s be honest about Havenly’s playbook: they don’t write checks. Every deal is all-equity—Havenly shares traded for businesses that are, at their core, more vision than revenue.

Oh, and here’s an interesting experiment. Pick one of the top designers on The Expert and check out their calendars. All I’m saying is…there’s plenty of availability.

The lawyer who knows where the money is
I caught a great episode of the Business of Home podcast this week. Attorney Seth Kaplowitz, who advises more than 100 design firms from solo practitioners to AD100 studios, dropped a decade’s worth of business acumen into one sitting. His verdict is unambiguous: it’s all about hourly wins. Designers on flat fees lose 9.5 times out of 10. He also has a counterintuitive take on press: a one-paragraph mention in The New York Times drives more inbound business than a 15-page spread in Architectural Digest. High-net-worth clients read the FT and WSJ, not shelter books. If you bill clients for your time (like you should be), this one’s required listening.

Greetings, Threaders! I’m Mr. Needle, your design quizmaster. I’m launching a brand-new competition starting from today until the 16th of April. The game is simple, but the challenge is real! 

The Stakes: Every correct guess earns you an extra raffle entry, so play every week to boost your odds! We’ll draw the winner on April 22nd and announce them in the April 23rd issue. Our lucky winner gets:

I’m waiting on those answers, Threaders. Don’t keep me hanging!

Stay sharp,
Mr. Needle

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