Behind the name
Founded in 2001 by Rudy van Thiel Sr. and his sons, Rudy Jr. & Frederik, VAN THIEL & CO. actually began more than 40 years ago, when Rudy Sr. would ride from town to town in his Dutch homeland with antiques strapped to his bicycle. Always on the lookout for great sources of inspiration and intrigued by the stories he would hear, he’d study every detail of each piece he found for creative insight. Since then, Rudy and his sons have drawn inspiration from all over the world, growing VAN THIEL & CO. into a large, high-end furniture source, which they recently moved from its initial location in Beijing to the rising global market of Vietnam.
From sourcing the European countryside and hand-picking antiques one at a time to developing their own distinctive designs for furniture retailers worldwide, the van Thiel family now has a name synonymous with authenticity, partnership, supreme craftsmanship and innovation. This appreciation for history, culture and the stories that make each piece distinctive enables VAN THIEL & CO. to approach creative design, finish development and sourcing in a way that captivates the imagination.
Today, VAN THIEL & CO. is a significant creative and sourcing partner to select, high-end furniture retailers across the U.S. and the globe. Their sources employ more than 10,000 people throughout the industry. The VAN THIEL & CO. team cares deeply about how they conduct business and about offering their sources and partners a high level of collaboration and expertise, all of which proudly reflects the VAN THIEL name.
Rudy van Thiel Sr. is based in Virginia, USA. He creates product, guides manufacturing and travels the world to meet with clients.
From Ho Chi Minh City, Rudy van Thiel Jr. leads the management of VAN THIEL & CO., develops and engineers product, and, like his father, travels the world to meet with clients.
Daughter Julie Lawrence works with Rudy Sr. in Virginia, leading a small creative team that collaborates every day on new ideas designed specifically for van Thiel clients.
Frederik van Thiel and his team carry out value engineering, pricing, quality control and planning.
Austrian CFO Matthias Hoedl manages finances.
Last but not least, VAN THIEL & CO. is proud to offer clients a talented young team of dedicated professionals from around the globe — The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Hong Kong, France, Italy, Belgium, USA, the Philippines, Vietnam, China and Argentina.
Architects of Furniture
VAN THIEL & CO. is an international furniture designer and sourcing company for a small, select group of retailers in the U.S. and around the world. As Architects of Furniture, our family-owned team manages your most important projects, from the first spark of inspiration to the final product, expertly guiding you throughout the entire, collaborative process. Produced with creativity, care and clockwork precision, the result is a distinctive look that buyers and homeowners love to call their own.
Fostering a family of sources, distributors and retailers
At VAN THIEL & CO., we believe that being family-owned is a big driver of our success. When it comes to the people we choose as our partners, we take the same approach, selecting suppliers, distributors and retailers whom we feel would be an outstanding addition to the VAN THIEL & CO. family. Even though our capabilities are that of an extensive international furniture source, we focus on fostering a small group of trusted partners that have their own respected place in the international home furnishings business.
Inspecting not just for quality — but style
Quality control is a pillar of the VAN THIEL & CO. standard of excellence, which is why almost all of our top company leaders reside close to our factories in Vietnam and India. We invest in outstanding quality assurance by personally guiding artisanal and large-volume production. Just as important is to inspect for design, finishing and overall style. We call this “Style QC”: upholding the VAN THIEL standard for striking aesthetics as well as the creative vision that we developed in collaboration with you.
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”
Aristotle
An experienced, custom approach that’s also fresh and relevant
When it’s time to introduce new product, retailers choose VAN THIEL & CO. for several reasons: our diverse taste, our eye for detail, and the rich, global experience that informs our design.
Equally important is the custom creative approach we take with each project. Based on thorough international research and the antiquing that has inspired us from our very beginning, our team comes up with the first spark of inspiration. Then, with a skilled eye for clean, modern design, we collaborate with you to develop inspiration for your specific project. Initial design begins in-house by the van Thiel family team. From there, we translate ideas into detailed renderings and first-sample boards, conducting presentations as a family to describe our design philosophy first-hand.
Once designs are approved, our creative and engineering teams spend a great deal of time in Vietnam or India, guiding sample building and sharing them with us at regular intervals. In production, VAN THIEL & CO. continues our hands-on, custom approach, especially when it comes to finishing, which we create in our own lab and never outsource. Our large network of sources as well as the close relationships we foster with our factories allow us to negotiate the best possible cost for retailers.
“Painting is easy when you don't know how,
but very difficult when you do.”
Edgar Degas
Inspecting not just for quality — but style
Quality control is a pillar of the VAN THIEL & CO. standard of excellence, which is why almost all of our top company leaders reside close to our factories in Vietnam and India. We invest in outstanding quality assurance by personally guiding artisanal and large-volume production. Just as important is to inspect for design, finishing and overall style. We call this “Style QC”: upholding the VAN THIEL standard for striking aesthetics as well as the creative vision that we developed in collaboration with you.
A supply chain that enables speed, responsiveness and clockwork precision
The VAN THIEL & CO. team can move your project from first request to final production in one streamlined process, keeping you continuously up-to-date as production progresses to delivery. No matter how complex the project, we are set up to meet all of your information and communication needs with clockwork precision. We integrate your system with our own, creating a seamless approach that eliminates cumbersome paperwork and reduces the potential for errors. We also offer sophisticated digital interfaces, including cloud-based, ERP-standard software, which serves as the “data backbone” of the company and gives our employees, consultants and designers access from anywhere in the world. Because we oversee these interfaces and our entire supply chain every day, we’re able to manage all aspects of quality control and logistics so that your expectations are met every step of the way — never compromising the artisanal, hands-on quality that our clients have come to expect.
Our customer support team speaks your language — in more ways than one
VAN THIEL & CO. fosters a highly trained core of dedicated customer support professionals who take a personal approach to servicing your account. To understand what you want in a product, we must understand your culture and how it affects your perception of the industry. We appreciate the cultural perspective you bring to the table. That’s why we cultivate a diverse and sophisticated international customer service team that understands your needs and can provide the highest level of service and support — from speaking a total of 10 languages to factoring in, literally and figuratively, where you are coming from and how we can best help you meet your goals. Plus, our support team lives where our products are produced, which helps them stay closely connected throughout every step of your project.
Committed to doing no harm and demonstrating fairness to all
Good business isn’t just about doing what’s best for our company, it’s about doing what’s best for the people and the world. This extends from the way we treat our team members and partners to the steps we take to ensure consumer safety. VAN THIEL & CO. invests heavily in compliance and product testing so that all of our materials and products exceed safety and environmental regulations. Whether social, environmental or technological, we apply the highest standards to our work: Water-based finishes, the GreenGuard program, the U.S. Lacy Act, Internationally-recognized, on-site, third-party testing labs and documented safety and compliance efforts for you and the end consumer to review.