Just in Time for the Fourth: Curated Collection for Joss and Main

You should know I'm a little bit of a flash sale fiend.  I love a bargain and have a sixth sense for finding great deals.  So when I discovered Joss and Main, it was love at first site.  I was delighted to meet the Joss and Main team at the Design Bloggers Conference in Los Angeles in February, and even more delighted when they asked me to curate a collection for a sale event on their site.  My collection, Stars and Stripes, just in time for the Fourth of July, launches at 9:00 p.m. EST on July 3rd.

Stars and Stripes is a theme that resonates here in the U.S.A. but is universal.  Celestial in origin, stars are a motif everyone loves.  And who doesn't love a classic stripe!  Throw in some red, white and blue and some silver and gold and there's a great collection. 

Here's a sneak peak at some of the items in my collection.

Furniture . . .

  

Lighting . . .

                         

Occasionals . . .

                                         

Wall Decor . . .

                            

Accessories . . .

                               

Here's my personal invitation to join Joss and Main (there's a wait list to join the site, but my invitation gets you in!). Just click here and see you on the Fourth!

The Seed is Planted

Father's Day dawned like any usual day this year.  No sorrow or feelings of sadness.  Maybe this was a sign.  My father passed away four years ago and the first two Father's Days after his death were difficult.  Not buying him a card, not calling or seeing him left noticeable voids. Perhaps I finally reconciled his absence and my loss.

But as I typically do Sunday mornings, I started this past Father's Day to read tweets.  A Twitter friend tweeted about missing her father who had also passed.  We tweeted about the missed dads, the feelings that somehow they are still with us and the "gifts" they send us. And it resurfaced: that missing piece of the Father's Day experience.

So I decided to celebrate my father on the blog.  It's topical because my father is one of the reasons I am now a designer.  (He is probably one of the reasons I was a lawyer first, but that's not worth discussing).  My father worked in the apparel business.  He started humbly as a shipping clerk in the New York City Garment Center.  Boy, could he tie a knot.  When I  came on the scene, he covered the New York metropolitan area for a mens' sport shirt and knitwear company known as Dee Sportswear.  Dee was a mom and pop business run successively by a family matriarch and then one of her sons.  My dad was in sales, but also designed the line.  Our kitchen was the studio.  My dad's boss would often pop over unannounced, puffing his cigar and leaving ashes everywhere.  Styles were discussed.  Arguments ensued.  My father usually won.

Design inspirations came from store owners who fed my father design ideas and from L'Uomo Vogue, the Italian menswear magazine he'd pick up from the newsstand.  I was the beneficiary of his inspirations.  Typically, if he found a shirt or sweater he wanted to copy, I'd get the original.  Such bad precedent!  I'd go with him to the menswear shows usually held in a hotel around New York's Penn Station.  The cigar smoke in my dad's showroom made staying in the room unbearable, so I'd wander.  My favorite thing to do was to look at how the rooms were trimmed.  It amazed me how clever displays, props and lighting could make the merchandise look so appealing.  It must be where I got my start.

So here's to you, Daddy.  Thanks for igniting my passion for design.

            

                                        1958                                                                           2004

Biz Buzz

I'm going off-topic today.  Instead of writing about design, I'm writing about the design business.  It feels topical these days: I've been worrying about whether, in this economic climate, the money I invest in doing a show house will pay off.  At the same time, I've been getting dozens of resumes from recent design school graduates looking for jobs.  And to top it off, at the Boston Design Center yesterday, two very established showroom owners cornered me to discuss at length the future of our business.

It's very evident that the traditional business model of trade-only designer showrooms is in flux.  For years, the Boston Design Center, where I shop, has had the Designer on Call program to allow the public access to the Design Center's offerings by engaging the "Designer on Call."  It recently added the Plush program which enables people to buy directly from participating showrooms simply by paying an annual membership fee.  I've been concerned that flash sale sites, like One Kings Lane and Gilt Home, take business away from designers by selling exclusive designer furnishings at a price not that far off from designers' net.  And finally, I've had considerable offers from dealers promising to sell me the same exclusive furnishings sold through design centers at less than trade net pricing.  These dealers don't have showrooms so their overhead is less and they pass those savings on to designers.

For sure, online and mail order retailing has changed the brick and mortar model of selling. It's one thing to order shoes online, anticipate their arrival and know that if you change your mind, you can send them back, either at no cost or for a small fee.  But you can't really do that when you order a sofa or a 9x12 rug.  Would you buy a new model car without seeing it in the showroom first?  Of course not.  So how could you buy a sofa without seeing it, to know that its proportions suit your space, or without sitting on it, to know that it feels comfortable?

There's an equilibrium you immediately sense from a professionally designed space.  Everything works.  Everything is in harmony.  You can't replicate that by buying a suite of furniture from a "lifestyle" mail-order retailer with the hopes that your home will look like the catalog.  Don't be fooled by those images (which, by the way, are professionally styled).  Nor can you buy from the famous designer's collection on a flash sale site and trust that your home will look like that designer styled it.

There's a place for designers and trade showrooms.  We just have to do a better job of educating and distinguishing how we enhance the shopping and nesting experience.

Works of Paper

I pray to the Frank Gehry idol.  Well, not really Frank Gehry's Wiggle Chair(idol worship is a no-no in my religion).  But I do worship this man's inventiveness and manipulation of materials.  Of his many iconic creations, Gehry's Wiggle Chair, made of corrugated cardboard, has inspired many to create similar objects.  And so I was delighted at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair last month to see interesting, affordable and sustainable furnishings made of this very mundane material.

Carton Planet, out of New Jersey, and Graypants, out of Seattle, featured works made entirely of cardboard. Carton Planet showcased chairs and tables from their Bloom Series. The chair is made of 124 layers of cardboard and the table of 145.  Maybe not for a luxe interior, but how about the office of an eco-friendly design studio?

         

Though not on display at ICFF, I love the color and form of Carton Planet's Qubica bookshelves. Carton Planet vouches for their stability and recommends them for bookshelves or as room dividers.

               

I also love Carton Planet's Checked Lamps. Made of recycled cardboard, in three sizes and an affordable $50-60 price tag, the pendant lamps are shipped in a flat box and the panels are sewn together with string.  Satisfies that do-it-yourself urge, don't you think?

 

Graypants showcased their Scraplights at ICFF.  Made of recycled cardboard and non-toxic adhesive, Scraplights' layers are laser cut and then assembled by hand.  Wonderfully textural, the laser-cut layers reveal unique patterns inherent in the corrugation.  These pendants look fabulous in clusters, a trend in pendant lighting I'm seeing lately.   

   

                                              

Another favorite at ICFF was the Soft Collection by Molo Design. Made completely of recycled content and completely recyclable, Molo's Softwall and Softblock systems are self-supporting honeycomb structures that stretch to create walls, seating and lighting.  The material expands to roughly 15 feet in length yet compresses to less than two inches.  Available in kraft paper, lightweight paper and a non-woven textile material, these modular units seem a no-brainer for instant rooms and trade-show booths.

        

Diary of a Show House Designer: Go Big or Go Home

On Monday, I previewed the site for the 2012 Junior League of Boston Show House.  This Show House, the Boston equivalent of New York's Kips Bay Decorator Show House, has been on hiatus for six years.  Whether due to the economy or the lack of a good site with abundant parking, the Junior League has concentrated its fundraising activities elsewhere.  And we've missed it.

I've participated in three show houses, two with Junior League.  It's a fabulous experience--hard work and fraught with headaches--but fabulous.  A show house presents designers with a blank canvas to show their work: no clients with budgetary constraints; no monstrous family heirlooms to design around; no one to answer to except themselves.  The upside?  Hopefully, media attention and new business.  The downside?  The up-front cost.  Designers have to pay to participate in Show House, not to mention the costs of materials to furnish our spaces and the labor to prepare them.  It's a big chunk of change.  Really big.  I have to admit, in the past I've groveled with vendors to get things on loan, or best case, for free, in exchange for free publicity.

So I thought I'd chronicle my experience as a show house designer on the blog. That is, if I'm invited to participate.  The initial step is to submit a room proposal.  I can submit proposals for up to three rooms. The deadline for proposals is June 27th.  I have my eye on three rooms; each would be wholly different in design and function.  But my mantra this year is Go Big, or Go Home.  I had designed small spaces in the previous two Junior League Show Houses: the first year, a guest bathroom, and the second year, a butler's pantry.  I loved the rooms I did at the time.  But they were cute, and I'm done being cute.  So this year, I'm thinking of something on a grander scale.  Stay tuned for further developments.

                    

                 The Site of the 2012 Junior League of Boston Show House: The Potter Estate, 71 Walnut Park, Newton, MA