the flamingos are back!

Original pink flamingo lawn ornament reborn in new US factory
The Associated Press
Friday, June 1, 2007

BOSTON: The original pink flamingo lawn ornament — the Americans' answer to the ubiquitous garden gnome — is making a comeback after its manufacturer went out of business last year.

A company that bought the copyright and plastic molds for the original version plans to resume production in Westmoreland, New York. HMC International LLC will pick up where Union Products Inc. left off last year when it shuttered its Leominster, Massachusetts, plastics factory after 50 years of making the kitschy, bright pink birds.

J.C. Waszkiewicz, head of family-owned HMC, said Thursday he expects retailers who buy his firm's flamingoes wholesale will appreciate subtle design differences between knockoff versions and the original by Don Featherstone, who studied art before Union Products hired him in 1956 to expand its lawn ornament lineup.

"Once I began discussions about buying Union Products, I started examining the different products on the market, and I realized Mr. Featherstone created a great-looking flamingo," said Waszkiewicz, whose firm closed on its purchase of Union Products in April for an undisclosed price. "There are other people who have tried to capitalize on his design, but none that I've seen hold a candle to the quality and detail he created."

Waszkiewicz's firm expects to resume Featherstone flamingo production by the end of summer. After Union Products ceased production last June, uncertainty surrounding the fate of the original led aficionados to snap up remaining stock in retail stores and secondhand Featherstone flamingos, in case those models became unavailable for good.

The molds are based on flamingos Featherstone sculpted from clay, working from photos of the graceful birds in National Geographic magazine.

The ornaments hit the market in the late 1950s when the color pink was in vogue, and America's exploding population of suburbanites sought to add flair to their lawns.

But the birds also came to symbolize bad taste, and some residential developments even banned flamingo ornaments from lawns. The bird also became a target of pranksters, some of whom swiped the ornaments from front yards, took them on the road, and then sent photos to their owners showing the kidnapped birds in front of sights like the Grand Canyon.

The flamingos typically sell at $10 to $20 (€7 to €14) for boxed sets of two — one standing nearly 3 feet (90 centimeters) high with its head held proudly erect, the other bending over as if munching on grass. Their legs are spindly metal rods that can be planted in the ground. The Featherstone originals have their creator's signature etched into the bird's plastic rear end.