From significant business changes to noteworthy product launches, there’s always something new happening in the world of design. In this biweekly roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.
Design Happenings
Palm Beach Design Days launches in tandem with Casa Branca Atelier/Showroom
She already has the Worth Avenue boutique in Palm Beach, but interior designer Alessandra Branca was keen to offer the vast design community another resource in the area. At Casa Branca Atelier/Showroom, a 4,000-square-foot space on Florida Avenue in West Palm Beach, design aficionados can rove through three galleries, poring over Branca’s fabrics, wallpapers, custom upholstery, and furniture, as well as an assemblage of vintage and antique items.
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The stellar new space is also a fitting backdrop for the first edition of Palm Beach Design Days (January 25 and 26), a series of panels delving into such topics as coastal design, decorating with antique treasures, and the importance of textiles, featuring insights from the likes of Victoria Hagan, Young Huh, Suzanne Kasler, Noz Nazawa, Brian Sawyer, and Suzanne Tucker. Rounding out the event—which kicks off with a keynote from Branca and AD Interiors and Garden Director Alison Levasseur on curating diverse collections—are book signings and shindigs.
AD PRO Hears…
… Kravet Inc. has added Caroline Cecil Textiles to its home furnishings portfolio. Founder, CEO, and creative director Caroline Cecil first established her eco-friendly company in California in 2015, turning out American-made wallpapers, pillows, and fabrics hand-printed onto Belgian and Irish linens spawned from her own transporting paintings. New products are slated to drop later this year.
…that The Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Design in Mind series recently went on-location with Gil Schafer, of AD100 firm Schafer Buccellato Architects, to explore the venerable architect’s design process and portfolio. Grab some popcorn and enjoy Unlocking the Mysteries of Place with Gil Schafer, now streaming on PBS.
Product
Maison Madeleine rolls out latest collection
Since the debut of Maison Madeleine in 2022, founder Leah Cumming has garnered a loyal following for her heirloom-quality furniture that exude a distinctive French flair. (We still can't get enough of the label’s Wave daybed dreamt up in Sister Parish prints.) The Los Angeles designer’s penchant for Art Deco flourishes is illuminated in her just-dropped creations too, like the striped, scalloped Le Nuage ottoman, which easily transforms into a coffee table, or the Vosges sofa flaunting soft, sinuous arms. Fans of the solid oak Midnight bar cabinet with circular reliefs, a Maison Madeleine favorite, will also relish the new petite nightstand version.
AD PRO Hears…
…the new e-commerce platform Persay makes everyday gifting a breeze, highlighting an ever-growing array of eye-catching tableware—an Italian splatterware pitcher from Il Buco Vita, Sir/Madam’s Georgian-style maple candlestick holders, and Atelier Saucier’s laser-cut wool placemats included.
…Todd Nickey and Amy Kehoe, founders of the LA-based AD100 studio and boutique Nickey Kehoe, have introduced their first grasscloth-based wallpapers. The three textural prints—Intaglio, Faded Flora, and Botanica—draw inspiration from a turn-of-the-century book of textile samples uncovered on a trip to the South of France.
Exhibitions
Se Oh’s two-part solo show opens at Stroll Garden
Adopted into a conservative Christian family in west Tennessee, South Korean–born ceramist Se Oh first became fascinated with the notion of dying when their parents, unsettled by their queer identity, feared they would never attain eternal life. Elegies, Oh’s two-part exhibition at LA gallery Stroll Garden (on view through March 30), explores the poignant, cyclical relationship between death and rebirth, beginning with “Chapter I: Little Deaths.” Showcasing more than 60 hand-thrown porcelain works that reference traditional Korean burial ceramics, the installation is heightened by viewers writing out “a little death” (think: a bad habit to change or memory to forget) on incense paper before lighting it and placing it in a hand-painted vessel. On February 29, just in time for Frieze Los Angeles, a tea ceremony will commence “Chapter II: The Witnesses,” which will introduce a second body of porcelain sculptures that resemble Old Testament angels.
Rebuild Foundation and Marta spotlight Studio Kër’s first furniture collection in Chicago
When he hung up his cleats in 2020 after 11 seasons, former NFL star and racial justice activist Michael Bennett pivoted to the creative realm, enrolling in the University of Hawaii’s School of Architecture. That same year, he formed Studio Kër with the late Imhotep Blot. Drawing from their Senegalese and Haitian roots and experiences growing up in America’s coastal South, the duo considered connections between the African diaspora and how Black people live and commune in the US today to inform We Gotta Get Back to the Crib, the studio’s inaugural furniture range. Moments of gathering and fellowship—from supper to church—are at the core of the series’ rotund Mo-Mo table, Pew couch, and low-slung Gumbo lounge chair. The works are now on view in Chicago at 6 Flat, the newly unveiled artists’ residences from Theaster Gates’s Rebuild Foundation, through February 10, at which time the show will travel to Marta gallery in Los Angeles, then Houston.
Timed to Haute Couture Week, Gagosian and Dior Celebrate Richard Avedon
Timed to the centenary of Richard Avedon’s birth, Gagosian honors the trailblazing American photographer with Iconic Avedon: A Centennial Celebration of Richard Avedon, on view as of today (through March 2) at the Paris gallery on rue de Ponthieu. Coinciding with 2024 Haute Couture Week in Paris, the exhibition spans Avedon’s early career lensing for Harper's Bazaar (1944–65) and Vogue (1966–88) before expanding into his portraiture of Marilyn Monroe, Bob Dylan, and Jacqueline Kennedy among other illustrious subjects. The celebration of Avedon’s works—emotive and piquant, but never at the sake of elegance—commences with a gallery opening this evening, followed by a Dior-hosted afterparty at nearby Bouef sur Le Toit.
Project Spotlight
Carolina Herrera makes a splash in Palm Beach
Carolina Herrera’s newly unveiled Palm Beach boutique designed in collaboration with architect Mao Hughes and designer David Lucido.
Carolina Herrera’s newly unveiled Palm Beach boutique designed in collaboration with architect Mao Hughes and designer David Lucido.
Carolina Herrera's newly unveiled Palm Beach boutique designed in collaboration with architect Mao Hughes and designer David Lucido.
Carolina Herrera's newly unveiled Palm Beach boutique designed in collaboration with architect Mao Hughes and designer David Lucido.
In fashion house Carolina Herrera’s new Palm Beach boutique, blush-colored Venetian plaster walls and hexagonal black and white flooring that recalls the late artist Cy Twombly’s Roman abode enchant upon entry. Working alongside architect Mao Hughes and designer David Lucido, the label’s creative director Wes Gordon imagined the 2,200-square-foot corner location on swish Worth Avenue as a courtyard palazzo, a breezy extension of the revamped Madison Avenue flagship in New York, with materials like champagne brass, cerused whitewashed oak, and marble. Home to the women’s ready-to-wear collection, handbags, shoes, jewelry, and beauty, the open-plan space marries limestone columns, fitting room pods swathed in ivory twill, and dark brushed bronze hanging rails with rattan, twisted rope, and shell fixtures that pay homage to the beachfront setting.