A $77-Million Les Lalanne Auction Breaks Records, AD Travel Invites You to Maastricht, and More News

James Showroom is coming to New York

James showroom owners Meredith and Hunter Ellis have chosen the Upper East Side’s Interior Arts Building as the next home for the designer-beloved multiline showroom of furniture, lighting, and textiles, which currently has addresses in Dallas and Houston. Set to open in June 2023—and aptly timed with the debut of James’s first in-house textile line—the 4,000-square-foot showroom will mark the first textile showroom within the IAB, where neighboring showrooms include Bunny Williams Home, Liz O’Brien Gallery, Newel, and more. The vendor lineup for James New York has yet to be announced, though if it’s anything like the discerning cast of creatives represented in the Texas locations (think: Casa Branca, Lisa Fine Textiles, Carolina Irving, Kathryn Ireland, Sister Parish, Penny Morrison, among others), designers are in for a treat. 

Business

Athena Calderone ventures into e-commerce

Fans gravitate to Brooklyn tastemaker Athena Calderone’s lifestyle site EyeSwoon for breezy recipes, entertaining advice, and as of this week, the beloved decorative objects, tableware, and kitchen tools that make appearances at Calderone’s own dinner parties and in her dreamy interiors. An organic offshoot of Calderone’s thoughtful gift guides, the shop is stocked with undulating crema marble bowls, sugar maple butcher blocks, and voluptuous Tuscan glass decanters, among other artisan finds. 

ICFF + WantedDesign Manhattan announce new leadership 

In 2011, Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat founded WantedDesign to cultivate a vast international creative community. The platform, acquired by ICFF in 2019, has since become a fixture of NYCxDesign every May. Now, Hainaut and Pijoulat have been named brand directors of ICFF + WantedDesign Manhattan, where they will work closely with Kevin Gaffney (parent company Emerald’s newly promoted group vice president of design) to spruce up the show with a tightly curated mix of exhibitors, programming, and immersive spaces. The 2023 edition will be held at the Javits Center May 21 through 23, with WantedDesign Manhattan serving as a 20,000-square-foot capsule within ICFF.

TEFAF appoints global managing director

Bart Drenth, who spent most of 2022 serving as interim director of TEFAF following Charlotte van Leerdam’s medical leave, is now the global managing director of the art, antiques, and design fair. In this newly created role, Drenth, who has a long career as an arts and culture consultant and strategist, will oversee TEFAF’s two annual events in Maastricht, the Netherlands (March 11 through 19) and New York (May 12 through 16) alongside TEFAF chairman Hidde van Seggelen. 

Design happenings

AD and Indagare are heading to Maastricht in March

Art and decor die-hards are in for a treat this spring, as AD and Indagare team up for a very special trip to TEFAF Maastricht. Running March 8–12, attendees will travel with Indagare founder Melissa Bradley and renowned design editor Mitchell Owens to the fair, which covers 7,000 years of art history, and will have access to TEFAF’s two preview, invitation-only days. “I’ve attended art and antiques shows for decades, yet none has affected me—creatively, intellectually, culturally—like TEFAF Maastrict,” says Owens. “It is the most important fair of its kind in the world, a paradise of rare and wondrous treasures, from ancient to contemporary, where museum curators and top-flight collectors seek out the best of the best in every possible category.”