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You are here:Guest Speakers»Patrick Versee (Invictus)
Tuesday, 21 March 2023 15:13

Patrick Versee (Invictus)

Special "Hungarian point and herringbone pattern in LVT, PVC, and vinyl"

Floor Forum International N° 123, May 2022

‘Aim to become a preferred supplier of luxury vinyl flooring.’
Associated Weavers (AW) is one of Europe’s top producers of tufted wall-to-wall carpet. In 2018, AW launched its Invictus Luxury Vinyl floors in the United Kingdom. Last year, they brought Invictus LVT to the Benelux under the same brand name. They aim to become a preferred supplier not only of wall-to-wall carpet and carpet tiles, but also of luxury vinyl flooring for residential and commercial flooring.

To achieve its aim, the company pulls out all the stops to keep ahead of its rivals in product range, branding, and in-store solutions. As part of that, the Invictus luxury vinyl floor concept and the display, complemented by an intuitive digital module, are not exceptions to the rule. They bring attractive branding and visuals to the diverse sales points, and therefore also to parquet traders.

The benefits of herringbone
We discuss the implications of various things for the parquet trade with business development manager Patrick Versee. We discuss LVT floors and consider specifically which solutions Invictus tenders in the field of herringbone patterns.

He tells us: ‘For centuries, herringbone has stood for luxury, an elegant look, and a timeless character. Moreover, it is perfectly suitable for both industrial and modern designs. That’s why we offer not only ordinary LVT floors, but also herringbone. Herringbone provides various things: motion in the interior, a 90° zigzag in the room, depth, a mix of colours, and endless possible variations. With Invictus, we offer a wide range of herringbone options both in dry-back and click, and that makes us fairly unique. In click we have three designs, Divine Oak, Highland Oak, and River Oak, all of them in three colours.’

No need for A and B planks any more
Patrick Versee points out a special asset of the Invictus LVT herringbone floorboards. For the fitting you usually need an A plank and a B plank, but that’s not the case with Invictus.
‘With our click system, you only use one plank. The benefits of that are legion. There’s no trouble with the fitting anymore and you need less stock. Moreover, the floor is easier to fit and it’s also a lot quicker with a system which we could call “idiot-proof” with tongue in cheek.’

Herringbone in LVT is one of the spearheads for AW and the click version plays the lead role.

‘The many benefits of LVT mean it is well worth inclusion in the parquet trader’s range. Something which we also complement with a unique Invictus Room Visualiser depending on a number of options and images which you can use to visualise your own room or project on screen. This is a tremendous tool for parquet traders which they can use, even on a smart phone, to show clients what the final creation will be.’

‘Obviously, I must mention here the numerous benefits of LVT as compared to solid wood. For instance, there’s its unique waterproof character, plus a remarkable dirt-repellent effect, and the maintenance which requires nothing more than a mop. For the rest, you don’t need a coat of varnish or wax, the product provides good sound insulation, certainly in combination with a specifically accompanying acoustic bottom layer for the herringbone, and it is exceptionally scratch-resistant. With regard to the latter, think especially of domestic pets. It also has a top layer of 0.55mm for both residential and commercial use. It’s also durable and can be recycled for the full 100% (certainly in our case). Finally, our LVT still meets the strictest A+ and E1 EU health and environmental standards and is extremely fire-resistant.’

Why take on LVT as well?
Obviously, we also want to know how many square metres fitters can fit and why professionals should include this in their range. ‘With two people you can easily fit 50m² per day, whilst if you work alone that’s about 30m². This gets done so quickly because you don’t have to look for a particular type of plank. We offer nine different slats per design, virtually with no repetition.

Moreover, the most important thing is that our “herringbone” enables professionals to show off their expertise!’
To conclude, we consider briefly the diverse markets which Invictus covers with its LVT. There seems to be a remarkable development on the commercial market.

‘Over the last three to four years, we’ve sold more on the commercial market than on the residential market. In particular, we’ve had a lot of orders in hotel, care home, and retail projects. Specifically for the herringbone market, we notice that hotels are being freshened up and that they’re removing wall-to-wall carpet in favour of carpets fitted on LVT.’