Each year, ICFF convenes the industry’s top editors and invites them to scour the floor of the Javits Center to choose the best and most innovative designs at the fair. The winners were announced at the end of the first day of the fair on the ICFF Stage with the judging committee personally presenting each winning brand its coveted award.
OUTDOOR FURNITURE — Poltrona Arreio │Sergio J. Matos
It takes a long gaze to unpack all of the material references going on with this chair: 10 leather straps designed to mimic those that attach a saddle to a horse’s body also reference the Brazilian tannery industry; the steel structure is meant to evoke the landscape of northeastern Sertão; and even the rustic nature of its totality is meant to reference Brazil’s Armor Movement of the 1970s. www.sergiojmatos.com
CARPET/FLOORING — Empire Collection│Aronson’s Floor Covering
The new Empire Collection of handmade carpets marks the company’s first designer collaboration from interiors star Ghislaine Viñas. For the In The Hood collection, Viñas didn’t have to go far for inspiration: the four designs are an abstract, geometric interpretation of four neighbourhoods near Viñas’s studio, as evidenced in the names (Vestry, West Side, Tribeca, and Freeman Alley). https://aronsonsfloors.com
EMERGING DESIGNER — WT Collection│Eny Lee Parker
The beauty and simplicity of both the booth and a small handful of products such as her Oo Lamps and BB Stool are what won Parker an award for the Emerging Designer category. Her technique, as well, caught the editors’ attention: using a traditional method of potter’s wheel fabrication to craft a collection of modern terra cotta tables. www.enyleeparker.com
FURNITURE — 2018 Collection│Fogia
Walking that tightrope between good design and nostalgia mining is tricky for even one product, but to execute it well for an entire collection is how you win accolades from the design media. Taking 1970s-era colours, shapes and fabrics and tempering it with Scandinavian minimalism, Swedish furniture brand Fogia did exactly that with a 2018 collection that includes 14 items, such as shelving, chairs, rugs and more by notable designers and studios like Luca Nichetto, Note Design Studio, Stefan Borselius, and Diiis. www.fogia.se
LIGHTING — Beam and Glow│Pelle
ICFF was the launch pad for a brand new collection of fixtures that combine vibrant colour with formal minimalism in a series of vertical and horizontal structures reminiscent of “objecthood” found in the Minimal Art Movement. Using optical grade resin lenses, each light is framed in bent aluminum that is anodized or stained with a hand-applied finish. www.pelledesigns.com
KITCHEN & BATH — Inciso│Gessi
Marking the Italian bathware company’s first collaboration with American designer David Rockwell, the formal gestures of early plumbing fixtures and the architectural sensibility of modern metalwork inspired this solid brass collection of faucets and accessories. www.gessi.com
WALL COVERINGS — Mexican Cacti│ Newton Paisley
A relative newcomer from Britain, Newton Paisley is a fabrics and wallpapers passion project of conservation biologist, Susy Paisley, who hand-draws each pattern. Her passion for nature extends beyond the aesthetic: for every metre of fabric sold, 100 square metres of wild habitat is preserved through collaboration with World Land Trust. Several lines were shown at ICFF including Mexican Cacti, which recall the flora and fauna of Mexico. www.newtonpaisley.com
BEST BOOTH
Editors like straight shooters, and New York-based Concrete Collaborative did exactly that with their booth design: a simple story told in an unpretentious way, “we make unique and sustainable concrete products.” www.concrete-collaborative.com
