Designing Greenwich Show

Our latest design, The Ariane Chaise

Last summer, I was approached by Mimi Sternlicht owner of the Loading dock and Meg Wendy to participate in a new type of trade show, an exhibition of sorts of designers' vignettes, art, antiques and furniture.

The show, to be held at the Loading Dock in Stamford, was to be high end  and intimate, reaching out to an upscale local audience of Greenwich and other Fairfield County towns.

At the time, I thought it might be a good venue to reach this specific audience, as I live in the area but my showroom and my work are in New York. I would love to have an office in Greenwich or Stamford and build a local clientele.

Of course, you can have the best plan in the world, but in life , as we well know, there is no guarantee... Mother nature played her trick, first a hurricane two weeks prior to the show which made it impossible for some of my artisans to work, as their lower manhattan studios had no electricity, then scrambling to get furniture ready on time within  the few remaining days, and finally a perverse coup de grace of a wild nor-easter snowstorm that made moving furniture pretty close to hellish! It took my wonderful electrician 10 hours to get home to New York when it would normally be an hour ride. I forgot to add to the equation the search for gas as most gas stations were depleted and huge lines guarded by local police were to be found at the few open gas stations. My husband and my son saved the day, by renting a huge rattling truck, picked up the furniture at various locations under torrential rain snow mix and helped move everything into our booth.

Opening day: Exhausted but thrilled to have pulled it off, I really had no idea of what to expect. Very interesting lectures were taking place throughout the day, Vicente Wolf spoke and stopped by my booth  where we chatted for a while, I listened to a great talk by Forence de Dampiere about French Chic...(I had to brush up on my french style...)

The day dragged on. My only experience with shows is crowds of people bombarding you with questions... I panicked a little, all this energy, time and financial investment... and I am standing idle in my booth with Jennifer my associate. But to day is a new day, I look at this as a new experience, Mimi and Meg are wonderful, I met a couple of interesting designers and who knows what tomorrow will bring?!?

Our booth 15x15 facing the entrance

I painted the booth with Benjamin latest paint collection

In lieu of a canopy , Jennifer and I resorted to chicken wire to install the Simon chandelier

Installing a chandelier...

Furniture delivered

Out look for this show was to go "modern glamour, eclectic"

Our new wing chair design: Jeanelle

Ariane sofa with To Turn You On table

Wide view of our booth

The Ariane chaise

Getting home after a totally exhausting day of picking up the furniture in different new York locations, installing the booth, spending hours hanging the Kadur chandelier (which sold ) I was ready to go home and collapse.Instead I was a raging woman with a broom, trying to save my trees whose branches were collapsing under the heavy snow.