![]() The shop also offers different kinds of glazing, both glass and acrylic, and the cost of those depends on how much UV protection a customer wants. Wendee Mai of 567 Framing in Brooklyn says her shop offers between 1,600 and 1,800 frames, hundreds of mats, and she uses molding from four or five different vendors. He says his materials may vary from Framebridge in that he would suggest an anti-acid and anti-lignin matboard, and give glazing options that they don’t offer (which is quite possible as Framebridge only offers one type of glazing). Maskot/Getty Imagesįor a 9 x 12 piece with 2-inch matting, Klostermeyer says Design Frames would charge somewhere in the $150 range, depending on the frame. Some framers offer thousands of different frames in store, all of which are kept on-site. He also gets custom moldings from eight different vendors. Klostermeyer offers 2,000 different frames at his shop, along with hundreds of mats and specialty fabric matting options. “I’m a second generation framer,” he tells me. Klostermeyer has owned Design Frames, a local custom frame shop in Falls Church, Virginia, for 50 years. The fewer options a business offers, the more able they are to order in bulk, therefore cutting down costs. ![]() You go in knowing you only need one black frame, but are then bombarded with a host of options: There’s matting (a piece of paper or cardboard that goes inside the frame and mounts the print or photo), molding (decorative embellishments on the outside of the frame), glass (referred to as glazing, which can be made of glass or acrylic, and, depending on what you choose, can offer UV protection), and the frames themselves.Īccording to Mark Klostermeyer, a member of the Professional Picture Frames Association, it’s the sheer amount of mattings, moldings, glazings, and frames a shop provides that drives up prices. Higher pricing is the consequence of frame stores keeping options on handĪccording to a 2018 IBISWorld report, there are 9,000 local frame shops in the United States, and if you’ve ever been to one, you know it to be a pretty intimidating experience. To demystify the process of framing, I spoke with custom framers - both big box chains and mom-and-pop shops - and found that the seemingly astronomical prices have a bit to do with the price of labor and expertise a local framer can offer, but more than anything, it has to do with options. And while the price of prints may have dropped, the price of frames has not, leaving shoppers to wonder if they should invest in a frame that’s triple the cost of what it’s preserving. Young adults are decorating homes and apartments with more budget-friendly art. However, the perception that custom framing is too pricey is also a symptom of a different reality: Millennial consumers - long past their poster-hanging days - have less money than previous generations. How can these companies offer the same price for a variety of different-sized pieces, but your local framer can’t? Why does an 8 x 10 frame at Target cost $13, but a custom 8 x 10 frame costs upwards of $90? The ascendance of online framing companies like Framebridge, Art.com, and Simply Framed, which offer fixed-priced framing make the already opaque process even more baffling. Why does an 8 x 10 frame at Target cost $13, but a custom 8 x 10 frame costs upward of $90?įor those who aren’t art aficionados, the price of framing seems inexplicable. Fast forward to today: Framing is now a service that communicates, “I have my shit together,” and this is partly because it is a notoriously expensive service. It wasn’t until the invention of the camera and photography in the 19th century when the demand for frames by the middle-class proliferated, as the nonwealthy now had something to frame. During the 14th and 15th centuries in Europe, frames were mainly commissioned by churches or wealthy families. Historically, a frame has been an architectural feature, meant to preserve a work and integrate it into a room. There is something about displaying home decor with a wooden-and-glass box (as opposed to using thumbtacks or sticky putty) that makes it seem more legitimate and, therefore, more “adult.” These inconveniences include scheduling your own dentist appointments, dropping off your dry cleaning, and the less imperative (but just as annoying) obligation to frame all your art. ![]() The journey through adulthood is paved with expensive inconveniences one must perform to be considered a functional, responsible grown-up.
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