Object of desire: 1950s chair & stool

In my past life I took a brief hiatus from fashion to edit an interiors magazine. I got to attend Salone di Mobile in Milan, ICFF in New York & 100% Design in London. I hunted down new designers at the satellite fairs, writing them & the established names up & drooling over pieces I wanted.

The habit stayed with me, but now that I have no idea where I shall live from September, it's little use getting my getting over excited about fabrics or sofas when I have nowhere now or later to put them.

Which is very annoying when I see pieces like this:

British 1950s lounge chair and stool with ebonised frame & newly upholstered fabric.
Price: £690 from Circa 20th Century

A design Christmas...

I'm very impressed that so many companies have decided to send virtual cards this year. This card from Tom Dixon is quite my favourite so far.

ADDENDUM: A kind commentator directed me here, to product & furniture designer Jamie McLellan's wonderful illustration side project. For it is he who designed this fabulous card for Tom Dixon.

Soho: The Kartell Mademoiselle chair exhibition

I have been rather social of late. D & H flew in on Friday for The International Contemporary Furniture Fair ,(the NYC version of 100% Design & Salone), so we caught up over fiendishly good gin cocktails at the ludicrous bar at The Hudson Hotel, after which lovely L & I headed to The Gramercy to check out the new private rooftop bar (more of this later).

After a weekend spent at ICFF meeting designers, I dedicated Monday night to design party hopping down Greene Street in Soho with JSL, from Boffi up to B&B Italia. Of most note (that is items noted before I drank too much delicious Prosecco and my camera battery died) was the clever reworking of Philippe Starck's 2004 classic, the Mademoiselle chair for Kartell, by several Italian fashion houses including Burberry, Moschino, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Etro, turning a simple upholstered Perspex piece into a covetable collector's item.


We ended the evening over som tam & curry at Tai Thai on Bedford in Williamsburg in Brooklyn after drinking some lethal vodka at a busy party (filled with people dressed in the kind of hmm, ironic clothing that style commentators admire on Chloe Sevigny but actually just makes you look like your house burnt down & you had to get a last minute outfit from Cancer Research whilst your eyes were still blinded by the smoke) thrown by ID & LLadro at design store The Future Perfect,& its neighbour A&G Merch a shop filled with covetable modernist pieces at silly prices. One more cocktail & I would have been walking home over the Williamsburg Bridge with a floor light under my arm.


Chairs (Top to bottom) by Burberry, Moschino & Valentino.
Pictures by me - can't you tell?

Kulchur

Yesterday we dragged ourselves away from House (JD) & Sex & The City (me)* and up to the rarified air of the Upper East Side. East 96th no less (consider that we live on East 6th). Several of the major museums are on Fifth which borders Central Park, allowing the dilatory museum goer to get through them all in a relatively short period of time - think South Kensington. The Met loomed ahead but we couldn't face it, our cultural leanings satiated (for the time being) by the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, The Guggenheim & The Frick.

To my utter, utter shame I had never visited Cooper Hewitt before. The current show, Design Life Now: National Design Triennial is a window into the experimental designs and emerging ideas at the centre of American culture now. It's beautifully curated and, above all, enormously enjoyable. Go, go, go if you are in New York. Take the relatives, hell, take the kids. (There's Pixar & penguins, KidRobots & The Sims - fun, fun, fun for all the family.)

The rest of the day.
Supper: Vietnamese (sauteed pea shoots, chili spiked long beans & beancurd) at Tigerland on 1st at 6th with JD & T. (She's planning a PhD on Jewish mysticism in 14th C Italy. As you do.)
Party: Tre's housewarming in Alphabet City, in an apt filled with models & beer. I lasted an hour, exhausted by culture.

Oh, & I have orange nails now.

*I have an excuse, yes I do. Interviewing Pat Field on Wednesday. This is research, oh yes it is.