Fantastic Furniture started as a market stall at Sydney's Park-lea Markets in 1989, by friends Paul Harding and Jonathan De Jong, selling outdoor furniture. Two years later, the first Fantastic Furniture public store opened at Birkenhead Point, New South Wales. The following year the Fantastic Lounge Factory opened and started production on an exclusive range of Australian made sofas and lounges for Fantastic Furniture. During this time, the Fantastic Furniture brand grew rapidly, however, the business couldn't keep up with the demand and in 1996 it went into administration. The business was subsequently acquired by Peter Brennan, Peter Draper and Julian Tertini and underwent a restructure. Over the next few years a number of Fantastic Furniture stores opened across NSW, and in 1999 the first Fantastic Furniture catalogue was distributed to over 1 million households. That same year, FHL was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. In 2006, Fantastic Furniture expanded its manufacturing division by acquiring Royal Comfort Bedding, a NSW mattress manufacturer, which enabled Fantastic Furniture to produce its mattress range in Australia. Today, Fantastic Furniture is a national chain with over 70 stores around the country. In August 2017, Fantastic Furniture partnered with CB2 x Fred Segal.
Furniture and beds
Fantastic Lounge Factory (FLF)
Fantastic Furniture has been manufacturing Australian made sofas and lounges since 1992. Today, the Sydney-based factory is the largest manufacturer of sofas in the Southern Hemisphere and produce and deliver over 130,000 sofas and lounges each year. In 2014, the company launched a new MyChoice fabric range, consisting of over 100 fabrics and redesigned their sofa and lounge range .
Royal Comfort Bedding (RCB)
In 2006, RCB joined Fantastic Holdings Limited, which gave Fantastic Furniture the ability to self-produce their entire mattress range. They manufacture 10 different mattress styles and over 120,000 Australian made mattresses every year.
Controversies
In September 2015 it was reported that dining chair design sold by Fantastic Furniture had cut off an individual's toe after being caught in the inner side of one of the chair legs. In January 2016 Fantastic Furniture was forced by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to recall one of their metal dining chairs. The "Worx chair", which according to the Australian Furniture Association is based on a 1934 design had "tapering on the inside bottom of the chair legs may lead to an entrapment or laceration hazard" according to the ACCC.
