PHILLY
EVENTSMarketplace: Best in Show
New York’s International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) is where designers, architects and discerning store owners congregate each year to uncover the most cutting-edge wares for modernist clients. It’s also a great place to catch up on what’s happening on the local design front. Among the up-and-comers who wowed the crowds at the cavernous Javits Center were three high-minded Philadelphia-area companies.
This was the third year at ICFF for brothers Jaime and Isaac Salm, whose Loft District, eco-friendly company Mio (mioculture.com) expanded the patterns and colors available in its line of 3-D “wall tiles.” (They fall somewhere between art and wallpaper.) They also introduced the Bale chair, a curvy plywood seat that balances atop a stack of your unshelved books. But their biggest hit was the Bendant lamp, a flat-packed, laser-cut steel chandelier quickly snatched up by the San Francisco MoMA shop and Old City’s Foster’s Urban Homeware.
Meanwhile, in another exhibit space, Bella Vista furniture makers Michael Iannone and James Sanderson, of iannone:sanderson (i-sdesign.com), revamped their signature “Glow Box” console and made a serious splash with two innovative designs: a coffee table made from reconstituted plant stalks, and a multi-purpose desk/office system/console table that comes with a rolling privacy screen. Finally, interior designers thronged to Swedish patchwork pillows and felted wool privacy screens imported by Maria Mollersten’s Wallingford-based company, Great Nordic Design (greatnordicdesign.com). Watch out, Ikea.
This was the third year at ICFF for brothers Jaime and Isaac Salm, whose Loft District, eco-friendly company Mio (mioculture.com) expanded the patterns and colors available in its line of 3-D “wall tiles.” (They fall somewhere between art and wallpaper.) They also introduced the Bale chair, a curvy plywood seat that balances atop a stack of your unshelved books. But their biggest hit was the Bendant lamp, a flat-packed, laser-cut steel chandelier quickly snatched up by the San Francisco MoMA shop and Old City’s Foster’s Urban Homeware.
Meanwhile, in another exhibit space, Bella Vista furniture makers Michael Iannone and James Sanderson, of iannone:sanderson (i-sdesign.com), revamped their signature “Glow Box” console and made a serious splash with two innovative designs: a coffee table made from reconstituted plant stalks, and a multi-purpose desk/office system/console table that comes with a rolling privacy screen. Finally, interior designers thronged to Swedish patchwork pillows and felted wool privacy screens imported by Maria Mollersten’s Wallingford-based company, Great Nordic Design (greatnordicdesign.com). Watch out, Ikea.
Originally published in Philadelphia magazine, September 2005
