Poufs Made of Pizza Boxes Weren’t the Strangest Things We Saw at Collectible NYC
This story is part of Fair Take, our reporting on global design events that looks up close at the newest ideas in fixtures, furnishings, and more.
In 2024, design fair Collectible made its stateside debut, bringing together a wide variety of designers, galleries, and collectives to show off some of their finest and most interesting work. Unlike the many other design fairs that pop up in New York, Collectible focuses on collectible design, of the sort that most normies like myself (and maybe you) could only dream of owning, but do love to look at. For the second iteration of the fair—which originated in Brussels in 2017—various creators and designers gathered once more in the WSA building in New York’s Financial District.
The coolest office building in all of New York. (Probably.)
Spread out over one very large floor with a stunning views of the city from every window, Collectible gathered an eccentric assortment of talent from around the world, showcasing some of their strangest, interesting, and most beautiful works. This year, the show included a section curated by Architectural Digest senior design editor Hannah Martin, centered around the idea of the folly—a decorative structure plopped in a garden or backyard that’s there mostly for a good time—and it was one of the highlights of the show.
Accompanied by photographer Rebecca Smeyne, I poked around the fair on the hunt for whimsy and a strong point of view, both of which were abundant in the work I saw.
Sabai x Julio Torres
Of all the DTC furniture companies out there, Sabai is perhaps the only one I’ve considered for my own home, thanks both to their commitment to sustainability and the design of the product itself. This little daybed is part of a collaboration with writer, comedian, and actor Julio Torres, and it’s certainly a bit of fun!
The Landing Sofa is part of the All Other Passports collection, launching later this year. Its curved arches, made of stainless steel, evoke the city (New York, hello), and the checkerboard bolster pillows can be also used as an armrest.
From afar, Aleksandra Pollner’s creations have an otherworldly effect, as if they were made from, say, rock scavenged from the surface of the moon. The material Pollner actually works with the most is sort of otherworldly—styrofoam, a ubiquitous packing material that cannot be recycled and is difficult to get rid of.
The mirror’s frame is also made of industrial clay and gold leaf, and the overall effect is that of a melting Rococo-adjacent mirror, ripped from the walls of a little-used room in Versailles.
The designers Edoardo Cozzani and Kamilla Csezgi shared a booth and their pieces share a similar visual language.
These simple monuments of stone and blown glass from Rome-born, New York–based artist Edoard Cozzani are his version of spolia, a practice where old architectural or decorative elements are incorporated into new builds. Cozzani uses chunks of timeworn stone interspersed with glass vessels to create these pillars, which are structurally reinforced with a metal rod, so that each glass element screws securely into the stone beneath.
Mycelium—essentially, the building blocks that make mushrooms—is a remarkably versatile and entirely sustainable material that’s picking up some steam in the design world in recent years. Kamilla Csezgi uses the material to stunning effect in her lamps and sculptures, pictured on the right, by molding the mycelium around bubble wrap to create texture and structure as it grows.
Aluminum seems to be the metal du jour, replacing the fingerprint-prone sheen of chrome—and French designer Llewellyn Chupin’s interpretation caught my eye.
Her collection, Ritual of Adornment, consists of just four items, but they are stunners in their own right. I was particularly taken by the bench, which boasts its own bespoke piece of jewelry, a custom made chain that’s inset into the front of the bench and dangles down on either side, for a dash of coquette.
In a world where many objects take themselves a little too seriously, Caleb Engstrom’s seats are a refreshing bit of fun, a highbrow version of something you might see in the common area of a college dorm.
The stool pictured here is made of exactly what it looks like—pizza boxes sourced from the streets of New York, with a reinforced, upholstered pillow on top. (The oranges are there for a bit of flair.)
More design fairs and the like should have a drag queen presence—though that’s not what initially drew me to Finnish designer Henri Judin’s booth.
The Bunker credenza, seen in wood and vibrant highlighter yellow on the left, is precisely the kind of piece that, in my mind, anchors any space you put it in.
Judin told me that the shape of the piece was inspired by Bunkerri, a beloved brutalist building in Helsinki that is set to be demolished.
The booth for Interval, a design collective, featured work by Monica Sardo, Maurizio Bianchi Mattioli, Alban Roger, and Arthur Vallin, all rendered in hushed shades of cream and aluminum, and seemingly designed for a retrofuturistic office space where it is acceptable to smoke cigarettes indoors.
Roger, who is responsible for the skinny and elegant sconce on the wall, said that all of the furniture was made in the Dominican Republic, hand-carved and shaped without the use of machines.
The booth for gallery Tuleste Factory was drenched in a deep, rich, burgundy and featured some of the nicest lamps I saw.
...as well as the sinuous and pleasantly blobby coffee table by Bert Furnari. It’s made of hand welded-and bent powder-coated aluminum and has a commanding presence despite its low profile.
Over at Dudd Haus, my itch for the surreal and vaguely witchy was thoroughly scratched. The Philadelphia-based collective assembled a collection of unusual and provocative pieces, but the two that stood out to me the most were two interpretations of a chair that could not be more different. Jean-Michel Gadoua’s Métek chair is the barest whisper of a chair—a steel structure draped with a sheet of hot plastic, pleated and arranged by hand.
On the other end of the aesthetic spectrum sits Baltimore-based design collective Realm. Their Quelaag chair is part of their Witch’s Chair series; made of dark wood, rabbit and lizard skin, it’s a seat fit for a high-end goth queen.
Bond Hardware’s sculptural jewelry has a hint of danger around it and is the perfect complement to Studio SII’s mesmerizing speakers, which dangled precariously over the booth.
Coated in silicone that’s stretched over the contours of the hardware underneath and hung from the ceiling by hooks used for body suspension, the speakers actually looked (and felt) alive.
Nothing delights me more than furniture made of stuff that wasn’t meant to be furniture—and technically, this little structure by Touch With Eyes isn’t quite furniture per se, but it does have potential! Constructed of stainless steel teapots, carafes, espresso spoons, strainers, and trays, it resembles an Alice in Wonderland–style centerpiece for the Mad Hatter’s friends, or just a place to store your little bits and bobs.
Interior designer Tara McCauley’s Glamour alle Vongole lamp caught my eye across a very crowded field of objects in the Folly section of the fair, in part because of how different it was.
The lamp was inspired by linguine alle vongole, but with a Hollywood Regency twist. McCauley had the vintage lamp rewired and incorporated elements of the dish into the piece itself, from the pasta stripes on the shade to the literal clamshells that adorn the base.
The parsley that dangles from the edge is made of Shrinky Dinks; McCauley said that her original idea of coating parsley in resin would’ve been too heavy. The result is a delightful item that dabbles heavily in the surreal—the answer to McCauley’s question, "What if Fellini were a lamp?"
Published
Last Updated
Topics
Design NewsGet the Dwell Newsletter
Be the first to see our latest home tours, design news, and more.