The MGM Table Lamp was designed by ‘radical’ Italian designer Lapo Binazzi and manufactured from 1960 to 1969. The MGM name comes from the lamp’s resemblance to the iconic Movie Studio Logo.
MGM Table Lamp (Far Fight) shown here with Binazzi’s Scarica Elettrica and Dollaro Table Lamps
I spotted this piece way back in May of this year during NYCxDesign at R & Company, a gallery at 64 White Street. The extremely beautiful Pink Enamel-finish lamp is now quite a collector’s item that can sell for as much as $14,000!
I saw this fabulous Pink Metallic Mesh Dress in a shop on Greene Street in SoHo when I was party-hopping during the Open Showrooms evening that closes out the two-week long NYCxDesign event.
Here’s a detail shot of the mesh that I managed to get, even though at this point I was already too tipsy to remember to note the name of the store I was in. Oops.
The camera roll on my phone tells me that pictures of the dress were taken at 31 1/2 Greene Street, but I looked up that address and I am pretty sure it was south of that exact location. It sure is a great-looking dress. I would wear it.
Update 10/19/19: The store is called The Webster and it’s located at 29 Greene Street!
Every Spring, NYCxDesign runs for two weeks leading up to the ICFF (International Contemporary Furniture Fair), but the Saturday evening prior to the kick off of ICFF is a festive night of open showrooms down in SoHo. Anyone who’s been to Open Showrooms knows that it means one thing; parties, and one of the best parties is hosted by Italian lighting designers Foscarini, which is where I like to start my evening. This year, I was completely smitten by Foscarini’s Orbital Floor Lamp, by architect and designer Ferruccio Laviani. The Orbital lamp pairs mid-century modern shapes with soft illumination to create a playful lamp for bold, contemporary interiors.
The Orbital Floor Lamp, a 1992 design by Laviani, features five glass shapes with large screw details. The glass shapes are individually backlit. Constructed of polished metal and silk screen-printed glass, the Orbital makes a timeless statement. Shown here in a multicolored lacquered finish, it is also available in white.
The Orbital Floor Lamp has a price point of $2,026.00 and is available online through a variety of outlets, or at any Foscarini Store globally.
Immersive Reverse Room Installation at Foscarini Showroom Featuring The Light Bulb Series (All Photos By Gail)
NYCxDESIGN is New York City’s annual showcase of all things Design-related! Must-attend events include a Saturday evening (May 19th) filled with parties hosted by dozens of SoHo showrooms, where you can get caught up on all the latest trends in furniture and lighting while eating and drinking yourself into a stupor. It’s all kinds of crazy fun. We saw a ton of cool stuff this year, but I think we had the best time at one of the evening’s early stops, the showroom of Italian Lighting experts, Foscarini, which is located on Greene Street right in the center of all the hot design action!
On this evening, Foscarini were celebrating the launch of The Light Bulb Series, by Architect/Designer James Wines in association with SITE— the architecture and environmental arts studio that he founded in New York City in 1970.
The Light Bulb Series on Display in the Foscarini Showroom
The Light Bulb Series is a designer art-house collection consisting of a limited and numbered edition of pieces – based on a reflection of the light bulb as an archetype, with its typical bulb-like shape, produced in a series of surprising provocations, as follows:
James Wines translates this reflection with explorations that revolve around the principal themes that have always guided his architectural research. These are inversion, dissolution, nature, all those statuses of “architectural flaw” which make it possible to rethink reality, giving it shape and then at the same time breaking down its boundaries. Wines’s light bulbs are in turn melted, broken, inverted, turned black, and invaded by nature. A propensity towards experimentation, doing better but also doing differently, which has always animated Foscarini as well.
The focal point of the party however was Wine’s Reverse Room installation, which he designed together with his daughter Suzan Wines, both of whom were in attendance for the evening.
The endlessly Instagrammable Reverse Room was devised to emphasise the surreal quality of these experimentations: in a dark-walled room, upside down and slanted, with monochrome tables and chairs, the table lamps blink down from the ceiling, whereas the suspension lamps peep out from the floor.
It is an invitation to think of a world, of design, and therefore of what is possible, where it is always imaginable to shed light differently.
Visit Foscarini’s website at This Link for more information on The light Bulb Series and other Foscarini Lighting Designs!
It had been raining in Manhattan for three days straight when we got a slight reprieve on Saturday evening. As I exited the subway at the corner of Spring and Lafayette Streets in Soho, I could not miss this rather oversized Bright Pink Shopping Bag, which had been discarded on the sidewalk, irresponsibly short of the garbage bin. No one likes a Litterbug.
Big Pink Shopping Bag, Detail
Mostly, looking at this impossibly compelling bag made me want to locate the Great Buy! 99 Cent store, and do some bargain shopping. Instead, I carried on to my evening’s destination of various NYCxDesign Parties, where I had a ton of fun and got drunk for free!
Note: It has come to my attention that this bag came from an Arizona Iced Tea Promotional Pop Up Shop, which was happening on Nearby Crosby Street from May 16th to May 21st.
