Welcome to New York Design Week!
New York Design Week is finally here and the Wallpaper* editorial team have descended on the city in force. Can't make it to the Big Apple for all the fun? No sweat: From 15-21 May, we'll be criss-crossing the city to bring you the latest – from news to launches to parties. Be sure to bookmark this page for highlights from NYCxDesign, the city's official design celebration, as well as news straight from the city's hottest showroom and galleries, the convention floor of ICFF, plus a newcomer on the scene, Shelter by Afternoon Light.
Meet the editors
Anna Fixsen is a Brooklyn-based editor and journalist with 13 years of experience reporting on architecture, design, and more New York Design Weeks than she can count. Before joining the Wallpaper* team as the U.S. Editor, she was the Deputy Digital Editor of ELLE DECOR, where she oversaw all facets of the magazine’s digital footprint.
Harriet Thorpe is a British journalist, author and editor based in London covering architecture, design and culture. She previously worked at Wallpaper* on the architecture desk, and now works as a freelancer for publications such as Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine.
What not to miss at NYCxDesign 2025, according to our editors
While the majority of the festivities happen in Manhattan, this year will also have an expanded focus on Brooklyn: the opening week party kicks off at The Refinery at Domino in Williamsburg. Plus, Dumbo has been newly designated as a design district, hosting a day of open studios, an evening exhibition of outdoor projections and the week’s closing party.
That's a lot of ground to cover in just one short week. To make it easier for you to navigate, here are our picks of what to see at NYCxDesign 2025.
Who is design’s ‘in’ crowd? This must-see new show takes a look
In the world of capital ‘d’ Design, it’s easy – easier than most would like to admit – to experience an itchy feeling of not belonging, whether you’re at a scene-y event, experiencing FOMO on Instagram or realising that the chair you’re coveting has a rent-level price tag.
Even so-called ‘Insiders’ (designers, gallerists, and, yes, Wallpaper* editors) can succumb to the same feelings. That irony was not lost on gallery owner Lin Tyrpien and design advocate Jenny Nguyen.
‘Even if you’ve been working in an industry for years and years, sometimes you still feel like an outsider,’ says Nguyen, who founded the PR company Hello Human in 2020. ‘But when you find your people that share that feeling and connect and are vulnerable with each other, you create your own community. Then you become an insider.’
That idea planted the seed for ‘Outside/In,’ a new show the duo has co-curated at Tyrpien’s downtown Manhattan exhibition space, Lyle Gallery. The dozen designers and makers on display vary in their mediums, subject matter, nationality and career longevity, but are all connected by their sense of working on the periphery of the design scene.
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This exhibition of Black women artists explores the meaning of making
A small gallery at the Standard East Village has been transformed into what feels like a very stylish – and personal– living room for ‘Innerwoven,’ an exhibition of Black women artists held in conjunction with New York’s design week.
All of the items in the space – including carved wood chairs by Nifemi Ogunro, textile collages by Sarah Nsikak, photographs by Beoncia Dunn and floral arrangements by Karla Smith-Brown, plus an assortment of antiques – are handmade by the artists themselves.
‘There are a lot of people who are designers, but very few people who are makers,’ says Tione Trice, the exhibition’s curator and founder of the itinerant gallery Of the Cloth. ‘The show is about the bravery that these women show up with daily in order to navigate the spaces they’re in as people who utilize their hands to show their strength and share that with the world.’
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Note Design Studio reveals a 100 per cent recyclable fabric for Kvadrat Febrik. Here’s how they did it
Stockholm-based Note Design Studio operates under the tagline ‘ideas you can feel’. The firm is taking that idea literally with two new performance textiles for Kvadrat Febrik (the Danish brand’s knitted textiles arm). Called Myr and Mylla – Swedish for ‘wetlands’ and ‘humus’ (a soil layer of decomposing leaves and organic matter) – the two knit fabrics are made of 100 per cent polyester and are infinitely recyclable. While Mylla, a melange, has a smooth, eggshell texture, Myr, has a looser weave that has a variegated, bouclé-like texture. I caught up with firm partner Susanna Wåhlin and senior designer Charlotte Ackemar at the collab’s launch party at the Kvadrat showroom to find out more.
Have you ever worked with a textile company before?
Susanna Wåhlin: No, but we’ve used textiles, of course, in all our work. And since we started, Kvadrat has been such a favourite company – more than all the other ones.
The brief was to do two kinds of textiles, one melange and one patterned. They were supposed to be sister designs, so that they were together, they could match.
Charlotte Ackemar: When we learned we needed to do a pattern, we said, like, oh, but we don't really use patterns. So we focused on creating something with a texture.
Susanna Wåhlin: It’s made from recycled polyester – it took six years to develop and is Kvadrat Febrik’s first recycled polyester ever. It’s also fire retardant.
Charlotte Ackemar: We had an amazing technical team at Febrik. We have our preferences and our views on what we like to use and what qualities we like to use, and then they have the technical ability of creating it. They’re knitted textiles, so they're also very stretchy.
Tell me about the colour palette, because they're very earthy and muted.
Susanna Wåhlin: As a studio we’re really drawn to colour. We actually started with 20 colours, but had to narrow it down to ten. We wanted the basic ones and the bold ones, you know, so that you can combine them and make really elegant moods.
What’s nice about this collection is that it is sustainable, but it’s still very elegant.
Charlotte Ackemar: It’s not about checking boxes – it’s still a design product. Sometimes, [with other ‘sustainable’ products,] you can still see that it’s a recycled product. Our collection is much more design-focused. You can see that with the beautiful colours. But sustainability should always be there in design. –Anna Fixsen
Pinch Design just opened a dreamy New York 'apartment.' I took a peek
London-based Pinch Design – founded by duo Russell Pinch and Oona Bannon and known for its warm modern furniture design – has just opened its first New York City home, the Pinch ‘Apartment’ on 13 West 9th St. The brand is by no means new to New York City, after having collaborated with The Future Perfect for 16 years, and having celebrated its 20th anniversary in autumn 2024 at Jacqueline Sullivan gallery in Tribeca.
Yet now, with this appointment only base, Pinch has a place that feels like home: a candlelit domestic space, even decorated with personal art, books and objects from the couple’s London home, which overlooks a verdant garden below. Here, working with New York based collaborator Ashley Hildreth, Pinch can focus on direct sales and custom pieces for US clients – who Russell describes as decisive, energetic and entrepreneurial, favouring their Landry elliptical coffee table, which takes centre stage in the Apartment, with a iridescent green glass top. —Harriet Thorpe
The Future Perfect: Faye Toogood, Lucia Massari, Lindsey Adelman and more
The Future Perfect townhouse in the West Village has been transformed for the occasion of New York Design Week, one of the biggest moments of the year for the gallery. The first exhibition of new collaborator, designer Faye Toogood titled ‘Lucid Dreams' features her Roly Poly dining table and chairs, which have been hand-painted with abstract expressionist flair, as well as a sculptural aluminium mobile.
In the marble-clad primary bathroom, there are colourful glassworks embedded with melted plastic toys by Venice-born Lucia Massari. Lindsey Adelman’s intricate lighting assemblages, meanwhile, bring unexpected glow and sparkle, even on a grey day in New York. The subterranean kitchen cabinets have become frames for an exhibition of punk-themed works on paper, named Expresso. In the garden and on the rooftop, Shore Studios’ curvaceously woven outdoor seating. As usual, The Future Perfect transports and surprises. –Harriet Thorpe
Lee Broom’s ghostly new sconces
Amid white Negronis and white wine, the mood was festive at Lee Broom’s TriBeCa studio last evening. But his soon-to-be released lighting has a slightly more macabre touch point: ‘It was sepulchral statues, cemeteries and the idea of bringing in fluid drapery,’ Broom tells me. ‘I wanted to create something ethereal, almost ghostly.’
The globe sconces, which are seemingly adorned with a plaster veil, are an extension of Broom’s Requiem line. The drapery takes its cues from the designer’s previous career in fashion, where he worked for the legendary Vivienne Westwood. ‘It’s all about the length. We did a load of prototypes. If it was longer, it would be too ghostly– too Casper. This is the perfect length– it’s like someone threw a piece of fabric on a hook and left it there,’ he says. ‘They’re light sculptures.’ – Anna Fixsen
Gaudí makes a comeback
The softly embracing form of the reissued ‘Batlló’ dining chair designed by Antoni Gaudí is impossible to describe without experiencing for yourself. The softness of the wood; the subtle, supporting and playful balance of the shape; the enchanting depth of the ebony stain that coats the 50 limited edition chairs by Casa Valle. There is a deeply humane and historical sensibility to these modern chairs that have been made by BD Barcelona, with the exact methods and materials of the originals.
First designed by Gaudí for the dining room of the early 20th-century Casa Batlló, an immersive total work of art, design and architecture in Barcelona, now the chairs are displayed in the new exhibition space of Casa Valle on Lispenard Street, which opens up into the universe of designers Giancarlo Valle and Jane Keltner de Valle. The showroom, modelled as a domestic space, features elements such as a vast tiled fireplace, richly-detailed architectural models, a swirling ceiling fresco and a mirrored metal kitchen, each fusing modernity, crafts, heritage and magic. –Harriet Thorpe
The scene at Public Records in Brooklyn last night for the OPENHOUSE Magazine x Public Records x Hello Human Design Week bash.
About last night...
The design community celebrated the launch of NYCxDesign with views over the East River and the skyline of Manhattan beyond. Red neon lighting designed by L’Observatoire International framed the dynamic, curved architecture of the former Domino sugar factory's rooftop, contrasting with the drama of the cloudy blue sunset. The energy was palpable – clusters of conversations were ongoing, the dance floor was populated early and the chemistry of the evening flowed – fueled by a tequila cocktail fountain, cubed Jell-O petit fours, and tortillas stuffed with zingy peppers by Pinch Food Design.
The crowd was a mix of veterans – one hotel designer, who has attended New York Design Week every year since it launched, described how he believed this year the event has reached a new peak of activity; while another international graduate designer, whose work is on display here for the first time, described the meaning of the positive feeling of being ‘included’. –Harriet Thorpe
Out and about at the Mercer Street block party
DWR's Greene Street showroom gets funky, thanks to a chic Pierre Paulin reissue
For New York Design Week, Design Within Reach (DWR) has just launched a Gubi reissue of the F300 lounge chair designed by Pierre Paulin in the mid 1960s, as well as the T877 side table. The seat is constructed of four upholstered triangles, sunken into an alabaster-coloured frame. The chair has been revived with new contemporary materials including HiREK®, a high-performance polymer made from recycled industrial plastic, which replaces the original fibreglass, as well as new colourways and three fabric types.
In the Greene Street showroom, the chairs are arranged into a listening room, with a record player and a playlist with two directives: connecting or disconnecting. It’s a setting that encourages people to relax and congregate, echoing Paulin’s famous conversation-pit-style smoking room in Paris. This is an inviting experience that Omar Nobil, creative director of DWR, is championing for DWR showrooms – in San Francisco, the brand has just launched a rotating gallery space populated with records and books, set to host collaborations with creatives beyond design. –Harriet Thrope
Vitra moves in at 46 Bowery
After a presence in New York City for three years, Vitra has now moved into its permanent home at 46 Bowery – a former restaurant in Chinatown/Two Bridges with vast windows overlooking the Manhattan Bridge entry. It’s a neighbourhood that encourages the brand to stay open-minded, curious and excited.
When designing the space, Nora Klasing, head of scenography at Vitra, wanted to emphasise the vast span of windows – new concrete flooring runs flush to the window edge, so the space feels like it is ‘flowing’ into the view. Curtains create a softly divided rooms, a minimal intervention and ‘subtle infrastructure’ for flexible furniture arrangements that each tell different stories. Other defining interior design features include the generous terrazzo bar is a place for informal meetings, coffees and conversations; and, a wall of piercing ‘pigeon’ blue tiles, salvaged from the deconstruction of Alvar Aalto’s Kaufmann Conference Center, which were acquired by local architect, Serge Drouin, grandson of Jean Prouvé.
Workplace furniture designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec includes the Joyn table, Alcove seating and new Mynt chair. The bright, warm colour palette began with the red brick of the Confucius Plaza tower, which can be seen from the window; there are also lots of neutrals including the Anagram sofa in beige, and some welcome surprises such as Aalto’s Tank chair in leopard print fabric by Dedar. – Harriet Thorpe
Blu Dot celebrates 20 years of the Strut table with Dudd Haus collective designers
Blu Dot's Strut table is a confident and bold statement to clearing some space for work, dining and even simply designating an open space for thinking in our busy lives. Blu Dot was established in 1997 in Minneapolis, with designs that were sketched on butcher paper rolled out on an empty table. Strut – made up of a welded square tube steel frame and a lacquered wood substrate top – is ‘an exercise in creating the most with the least’, seating six for dining or a ‘power desk’ for one.
This week, Strut celebrates its 25th anniversary with an exhibition of Strut-inspired objects created by 21 members of the ‘Dudd Haus’ collective at the Blu Dot showroom on Madison Avenue. The exhibition title ‘This is not a Strut’ references Surrealist artist René Magritte's painting, This is Not a Pipe – an irreverent nod to the playful modern spirit of Blu Dot. New products gather like a group of friends, sharing some common ground, yet each expressing its own personality – such as the 'Productivity Enhancer’ banker’s lamp by Carl Durkow made of stainless steel mesh and aluminium; Hannah Bigeleisen’s ‘Throne stool’; or the Strut’O fruit bowl designed by beeep. The exhibition launched with hot dogs and beers, celebrating the ideas, friends and community that furniture can inspire. – Harriet Thorpe
Faye Toogood’s playful lamps illuminate TIWA Select
Faye Toogood is having a New York moment. A show earlier in the year at Friedman Benda, is now followed up by two exhibitions named Lucid Dream, happening concurrently at TIWA Select gallery and The Future Perfect. In Tribeca, TIWA is showing her painted paper lamp shades, crafted in expressive hanging and floor-standing forms, and a product of her personal and intimate artistic practice as opposed to her popular commercial output. The ‘Johnny’ lamps set an atmosphere that evokes the moods of late night working and melancholy daydreaming. The soft lighting illuminates the gallery, beyond which lies the live/work space of gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker, who is attracted to playful creative spirits, and design that doesn’t take itself too seriously. –Harriet Thorpe
Highlights from ICFF
While New York Design Week is technically seven days, we've just entered week two of the festivities. Javits Center is particularly packed right now as designers, product manufacturers and journalists journey westward to peruse the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) and its sister fair, Wanted. I was lucky enough to be invited to judge this year's ICFF Editors Awards so I got to hit the floor early, before the masses descended. Amid the hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of items on display, a few things caught my eye (and no, not just the special Wallpaper* newsstand). Find out about my faves here. – Anna Fixsen
Breakfast at Nickey Kehoe's stately showroom and store
Partying with Thomas Heatherwick and Longchamp
What’s Design Week without some serious design names? Last evening, Wallpaper* popped by the opening fête for Longchamp’s revamped SoHo flagship, ‘La Maison Unique.’ Look familiar? That’s because Thomas Heatherwick designed it 20 years ago…and he's back for take two. The designer and his studio gave the space a green-doused makeover, including the store’s signature undulating stair and cozy sitting areas. At the party, guests, which included Emma Roberts, Ego Nwodim and Natalia Dyer, sipped Champagne, created custom Longchamp keychains and partied on the store’s roof terrace. The nibbles were, of course, green. The evening’s most stunning moment, though, was when an energetic dance performance took place on the store’s green steps. I wasn’t the only guest who was amazed: As one member of the Heatherwick Studio team told me, ‘I accidentally slid down those the other day!’ – Anna Fixsen
Shelter 2025: 'More than a fair — it’s a vibe'
One of the many delights of the week was our pitstop at Shelter, a new design fair founded by the online collectible design market Afternoon Light. More than 100 different furniture and lighting exhibitors took over the third floor of the Starrett-Lehigh building. And for those who made the journey west, it was totally worth it. Wallpaper*’s correspondent said that the showing offered ‘freedom and flexibility within a traditional design fair format.’
Read our review here.
