Cross-cultural Flights of Fancy in Fashion and Furniture
A gala passport to an evening of celebrities and exotic global destinations -- including the chance of a free trip to Paris -- will be at the door for guests attending the September 17 fall season gala at Steelcase Work/Life New York. The event, called Destinations, is a fusion of fashion and furniture design, created by Interiors & Sources' editor-at-large Beverly Russell and colleague June Weir. It also is a fundraiser for two important beneficiaries: Furnish a Future, a program of The Partnership for the Homeless, and Interior Designers for Legislation in New York (IDLNY), a professional organization seeking to roll back the state sales tax in New York on designers' services.
The elegant filmstar Arlene Dahl will act as master of ceremonies for an awards ceremony which will honor five notable New Yorkers for their contributions to the quality of life in the city: Senator Roy Goodman; Assemblyman Herman T. Farrell, Jr.; Dianne Pilgrim, director, Cooper Hewitt National Museum of Design; Richard Kaplan, founder and director, Heritage Trails, New York; Durston Saylor, the noted interiors and architecture photographer; and the New York PBS television station, Channel 13.
Threading their way through the crowd will be 10 fashion models dressed in outfits from the fall collection of New York's top fashion designer Todd Oldham, whose inspirations come from a magic carpet ride around the world on the romantic Orient Express, the Trans Siberian Railway and other global experiences. Rich embroideries, luxurious materials and exotic colors bring the treasures of foreign lands right into the lap of American fashion aficionados.
To synchronize with the theme of the evening, 17 leading designers and architects will recreate vignettes depicting 15 global destinations:
- Gensler's designer Katrina Kostic Samen, a principal in the firm's London office, will bring the British approach to her business lunch vignette, working in partnership with Gensler's New York principal, Margo Grant Walsh.
- Martha Burns, principal, NBBJ, who worked on the Jakarta Convention Center, is recreating the atmosphere she remembers "in one of the most exciting cities in the world, where the contrasts of Western know-how and Asian heritage meet face to face."
- Clodagh, designer of one of the largest advertising agencies in the world -- Densu in Tokyo -- is combining the ecological themes of air, earth and water in her presentation of the Japanese capital city.
- Mancini Duffy's Dina Frank chose Zagreb, Bosnia, for her vignette destination because her family's roots are in this region.
- Born in Bombay, educated at Cornell and Pratt Institute, Tarik Currimbhoy has an architecture and design office in New York and a satellite in Bombay with partner Ratan Batliboi who will fly in for the Destinations event. Their vignette shows how Bombay office style is moving toward Western design.
- HLW's Carolyn Brooks will recreate Shanghai, a city close to her heart since her adopted daughter was born in China.
- Carolyn Iu, Iu & Lewis, chose Hong Kong, home of her parents, for her vignette.
- Other designers include Juan Montoya, Caracas; Stephen Apking, Istanbul; Glenn Gissler, Milan; Victoria Hagan, Paris; Rick Focke, Verona; Woody Rainey, Flatland; Julie Barnhardt Hoffman and Bill Bouchey, Moscow.
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