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.
Business
Following financial hardships, Interior Define has a new owner
For custom furniture maker Interior Define, 2022 was a rough year: The venture-capital-backed company was riddled by rising supply-chain costs, dwindling cash reserves, and a barrage of infuriated customers frustrated over heaps of undelivered sofas. Months of financial woes combined with a lack of transparency within the organization recently culminated in Interior Define following an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors, a bankruptcy-like procedure wherein parts of the company will be liquidated, the company announced in an Instagram post this week.
Optimistic news for outstanding Interior Define shoppers? Online design platform Havenly has already inked a deal to purchase the company’s intellectual property and to take over the brand. (The move comes less than a year following Havenly’s acquisition of fellow custom furniture maker The Inside.) According to a report from Business of Home, Havenly plans to put new staff in place (Interior Define leadership, including CEO Antonio Nieves, recently stepped down), keep select locations of brick-and-mortar Interior Define studios open, and fulfill as many of those backlogged orders placed prior to December 29 as possible.
Cortney Bishop unveils e-commerce site
Album, the newly launched retail platform and gallery from Cortney Bishop, the Charleston, South Carolina–based designer will debut monthly drops of furniture, art, and decor she’s currently swooning over. Bishop’s inaugural December “track list,” developed with art curator Wills Baker, revealed 13 “hits,” including such limited-edition shoppable finds as a 1965 Brutalist armoire from Paul Evans and a pair of 19th-century Neoclassical Italian tazzas.
In the news
New York Botanical Garden names the 2023 Orchid Show guest designer
Some five years ago, when Los Angeles landscape artist Lily Kwong was just getting her studio off the ground, she took classes at the New York Botanical Garden’s (NYBG) Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. After tackling large-scale projects for the likes of the High Line, Shou Sugi Ban House, and Bal Harbour Shops, Kwong has come full circle: She’s been named the guest designer for the 20th annual NYBG Orchid Show.
Kwong, both the first woman and Asian American to preside over this prominent event, will orchestrate hypnotic installations of thousands of orchids that illuminate the connection between nature and humanity. Drawing from paintings that have been passed down from Kwong’s own ancestors in Shanghai, the displays—many of them showcasing orchids sourced from Asian countries—will evoke fantastical, contemplative mountainous forms. The Orchid Show: Natural Heritage will be on view from February 18 through April 23.
Product launches
This new company seeks to preserve discontinued Hermès textiles
Upon learning that Hermès had halted its textiles collaboration with Dedar, Los Angeles designer Jon Brent Campise began hoarding rolls of the coveted fabrics for future interiors projects. It was a cocktail gathering with like-minded pals Alexandra Fuller and Jaime Schwartzberg that sparked the rollout of Galerie Reve, a source of luxe, limited-edition home goods that reimagine vibrant prints from the Hermès back catalog. Consider silky pillows swathed in an abstract orange-and-white zebra motif, or the cotton-polyacrylic H Losange placemat, playfully emblazoned with oversized yellow diamonds.
The chair that consumed Instagram now has new iterations
In 2021, London practice Buchanan Studio introduced its plump made-in-England Studio chair, and design fans went wild for its thick screen-printed ruby, indigo, or rose-hued stripes and duo of seemingly floating cushions. A deeper dive into this glam 1970s aesthetic has led Buchanan Studio to hatch an imposing sofa version (available in two sizes) that flaunts the same curves and a deep frame crafted out of FSC-certified beech and birch. Rounding out the burgeoning Studio collection is a soft ottoman adorned with suede straps reminiscent of vintage luggage.
Openings
Marianne Boesky Gallery pops up at San Francisco’s Gallery 181
Atop 181 Fremont, San Francisco’s first LEED Platinum-certified mixed-use building located in the SOMA district, is Gallery 181. The soaring penthouse space, kept by art advisor Holly Baxter, will welcome a pop-up installation from New York–and Aspen-based Marianne Boesky Gallery on January 17 (through March 17) that celebrates the innovative fusion of art and technology.
Dovetailing with FOG Design+Art Fair, the appointment-only exhibition will feature the legendary Frank Stella’s mixed-media models in conversation with C-prints from the up-and-coming conceptual artist Sarah Meyohas, along with anthropomorphic bronze sculptures by The Haas Brothers and Pier Paolo Calzolari’s intriguing salt-based works.
Projects
Robert A.M. Stern Architects makes its first foray into the UK
Sleek residential complexes are a hallmark of Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA), and now the eminent New York firm is bringing that sheen to London with 1 Mayfair, located on the site of the former Audley Square. Developed by Caudwell, the eight-story residence, slated for completion in 2025, will uprise 29 units surrounding a garden in one of the city’s poshest districts. Cordially aligned with London’s most striking structures, 1 Mayfair will be clad in Portland stone and highlights stacked bay windows, sculptural balustrades, and hand-carved ornamentation.
“We’re best known for our luxury projects in New York City, but wherever we work, we strive to create buildings that feel like they’ve grown out of their place—their unique architectural and historical context—while also making their own statement,” Dan Lobitz, partner at RAMSA, tells AD PRO. “As we do with all our projects, we worked to tie our design into the scale, style, and materiality of the existing context, from Georgian to Victorian, to Neo-Georgian and Art Deco architecture. Central to our vision was realizing a building that both honors and reinterprets the neighborhood’s 400-year architectural tradition.”