Conover, N.C. (USA) - Ask any employee at Vanguard Furniture - a 32-year-old maker of fine upholstery what his or her title is and you are likely to get a blank stare. ''We don't really have working titles, said Anissa Leatherman who works in merchandising. ''We work in departments as team members. Vanguard promotes a team approach so there is no real emphasis on hierarchy. Everyone knows his or her job and we come together often to share ideas and offer feedback.''

The teamwork approach has propelled Vanguard's status from a relative unknown - in the eyes of consumers - to a brand that, according to retailers, customers are beginning to ask for.

''Early in the '90s, retailers began telling us that although they loved our product and knew we had a great reputation in the industry, they wanted us to have more of a consumer presence,'' said John Bray, team leader (and official president) of Vanguard. ''We wanted to raise visibility in the marketplace.''

So Vanguard promoted teamwork. Instead of keeping their heads in their own corners, be it sales, merchandising, upper management, design, or product development, employees came together to share ideas and work jointly on new concepts. ''By doing this we're getting all different age groups, different interests, and creative ideas,'' Bray said. ''There is a lot of traveling that our team members do to get ideas, and the synergy we get from everyone's input has made for a much better product.''

The free flow of ideas at Vanguard resulted in a licensing agreement with PGA Tour in 1998. ''We decided that licensing made more sense than just a greater advertising effort,'' said Bray. ''With licensing comes credibility and public relations.''

PGA Tour Home embraces both upholstery and occasional pieces for living, dining, and bedrooms in three distinct lifestyles: Club Life, Today's Home, and Resort Living. The look is described as ''classic, but livable.''

In 1999, Vanguard entered into licensing agreements with Stetson and Kathy Ireland. Both collections are characterized primarily by their fabrics and decorative accents. Stetson includes vintage-inspired furniture dominated by leather and chenille-covered upholstery, while Kathy Ireland's overstuffed transitional styled upholstery sports fabrics such as washed denims and cottons. Teamwork extends to the purveyors of the licensed lines as well.

''Kathy has worked with us very closely in the development of her line and her fabric selections and she has final edit on all fabrics,'' said Leatherman. ''And Stetson's president, Pierre Bessez sends ideas constantly. The new group of vintage fabrics this season are the result of Pierre's input and they have become the line's number one seller.''

Meanwhile, the fabric selections for Vanguard's core group and its licensed lines is the same ol' story heard throughout the industry: chenilles are hot, hot, hot! However, in order to differentiate and tell a unique fabric story, Vanguard has applied the teamwork approach also to the fabric buying process. ''They (the mills) come to us with ideas and we go to them with ideas,'' said Denise Alala, also in merchandising. ''It's really a partnership that we've developed with some of our main suppliers.''

Those supplying volume to Vanguard include Home Fabrics, Mastercraft, Doblin, Sunbury, Weave, and Valdese. Internationally, two main suppliers are Kneeland and Regal. ''If we're looking at a fabric and a particular price point and we don't like we're it's going, we'll ask the mill to take something out or put something in,'' said Leatherman. Added Alala, ''At some mills we even have access to older documents and often talk to their designers to get inspired. It's madness sometimes, but the mills seem to appreciate us working together and they understand that we're just striving for uniqueness.''

Around 40 percent of the 150 seasonal fabrics in the Vanguard line are customized. Besides chenilles, Vanguard sells a significant amount of traditional damasks and tapestries. Where prints are concerned, Alala said that faux animal skins and animal images have been garnering the most attention. The company seeks fabrics for the core line at costs averaging from $8 to $12, but upwards of $30. ''We stay away from anything under $5,'' said Leatherman. ''The lower-end fabrics are not what our customer is shopping Vanguard for.''

And according to Leatherman, leather's popularity has grown tremendously, especially since the launch of the Stetson line. ''We've gone crazy in the leather arena,'' she said. ''We've tried some of the unique treatments that are out there now, but what sells best for us are the basic soft leathers in basic colors.'' Vanguard's key leather players are Lackawana, Friitala, and Arcona. Merchandising only considers higher grade leathers that sell from $2.50 to $4.

Bray said each season's fabric selections have international as well as domestic appeal. Vanguard's international clientele includes dealers in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, and the Far East. He said that the company's international sales manager offers input on the preferences of international customers, which is often the ''American look.''

''Dealers all over the world look to us for the latest and best, not necessarily the trendiest,'' he added. To get ideas for fabrics, the Vanguard team closely follows what is happening in the apparel industry and listens to what the mills think will sell. ''We don't typically buy a mill's prepackaged look,'' said Leatherman. ''We want an individualized look ... something more stylized. So we will pull from here and there to come up with our own correlates. It's eclectic and that's what Vanguard is about. It's great to hear designers tell us that a group of fabrics we've selected for market look like they were made to go together, when they are all from different mills.''

Even though Vanguard regularly teams up with a few select mills, Alala said that no mill is too big or too small to be considered. ''We look at everyone. We don't want to exclude any great fabric line that might be out there and might be perfect for something we're doing. We spend a solid month looking at thousands of fabrics.''