The M&O Americas awards celebration took place in the Moore Building in Miami; image courtesy M&O Americas, © worldredeye.com.
During a dinner in Paris this past January when we were attending Maison & Objet, Gaston Isoldi, the Americas Director for the tradeshow brand, remarked, “We are positioning M&O Americas by maintaining the DNA of Maison & Objet while going deep into the roots of the location. Last year, 70% of the exhibitors came from Europe and the rest from the Continent. We want to shift that to a 50/50 split going forward.” Wanting to see for ourselves how the trendsetting Parisian show was presenting global design to America, we flew south and found, though it had a much smaller footprint than its French edition, exhibitors from both continents had brought ample sophistication to Miami.
Global Design with Fashionable Parallels
Animal skins trending in fashion and design: a Dolce & Gabbana animal print fabric, Fall 2016 RTW; Tiger skins brought to M&O Americas by Silvina Marotti; and furs on the runway for Fall 2016 RTW by Marc Jacobs.
As we walked the show we couldn’t help but notice similarities between the décor we were seeing and the fashion flowing forth on the runways with the Fall 2016 Ready-to-Wear collections being unveiled. Case in point is the above pairing of Marc Jacobs’ sumptuous furs, a Dolce & Gabbana animal print fabric and a luxe Argentine tiger hide brought to the M&O Americas floor by Buenos Aires-based Silvina Marotti. Marotti is one of the exhibitors proving Isoldi’s point that more of the Americas were participating this year.
Design Artistry at M&O Americas
Metal Accents trending in design: an Elledue Arredamenti sofa paired with metal artistry in the new Valentino collection.
Europe was still in the house with sumptuous offerings, several standouts from Italy and Portugal catching our eye. Italy’s Elledue Arredamenti ornaments upholstery with metal in such a refined way that each adornment seems jewelry-like, such as the sofa above we’ve paired with an ornamented Valentino gown. This booth was a highly refined one in our opinion—their work taking on a level of sophistication similar to, say, the House of Cartier, as compared to so many other companies producing upholstery without the same level of finesse.
This Fendi sofa with its pleated suede back was sexy at M&O Americas 2016.
Another splendid Italian creation was the Fendi Casa sofa above with its stunning pleated back in suede. We noticed how the new Pierre Balmain releases below have the same elegant appeal in suede and fabrics as this beautifully crafted piece of furniture. Don’t you feel the resonance in these glamorous creations?
Pleated suede and fabric trending in the Pierre Balmain Fall 2016 RTW runway fashions.
Sophisticated Design Unveiled in Miami
The Portuguese brand Munna brought upholstery pieces to the fair, which we found super appealing—the curvaceous lines of the sofa and the attractive cleft in the back of the slipper chair (both in the next two pairings) are testaments to minimalistic artistry in design. The fact that each was covered in a sumptuous fabric made them all the more appealing.
Velvet is trending in fashion and design: a Munna sofa at M&O Americas 2016 paired with a Valentino gown from the Fall 2016 RTW runways.
These pairings proves that neither design nor fashion is ever one-note, as the furniture relates just as easily to one of the most graceful gowns we saw this season in Valentino’s collection as it does to the edgy flair for which Marni has become famous.
Deep green spotted in both fashion and design: a Munna slipper chair at M&O Americas 2016 and a Marni ensemble on the Fall 2016 RTW runways.
One more fashion forward parallel we noticed was the glint of shimmering fabrics, such as the upholstery on the elegant sofa below paired with another Marc Jacobs stunner, the flowing quality of its lines a testament to a talented fashion designer who understands how to drape a woman’s body in movement—even while she’s standing still.
Shimmering fabrics trending at M&O Americas 2016 and in the Marc Jacobs runway debuts for Fall 2016 RTW.
We’ll be presenting these “fashion fix” journal entries from time to time so let us know if you enjoyed this exploration of the relationship between the parallels that seem to always exist with design and fashion, would you?
Celebrating Zaha Hadid
To close on a more somber note, though, we must take a moment to celebrate the inimitable Zaha Hadid, whose untimely death has affected all of us in the design and architecture fields. She was very much a part of one of the M&O Americas festivities—and event celebrating the talent awards for this year’s fair. The evening unfolded in the historic Moore building in the Miami Design District where we were embraced by her organically edgy permanent sculpture Elastika. [The lead image of this journal entry and the image directly below were taken during this event.]
The M&O Talents Awards took place in the Moore Building surrounded by Zaha Hadid’s Elastika.
Hadid has a special place in this town because she was the first Design Miami/ Designer of the Year in 2005—which is when she was commissioned to create Elastika—so it was a fitting tribute when Craig Robins saluted the visionary just before the newest wave of talent was recognized.
This post, Global Design with Fashionable Parallels, © Bruce Andrews Design, all rights reserved. Our furniture is now available through Nandina Home in Aiken, SC; Jalan Jalan in Miami, FL; Travis & Company in ADAC in Atlanta; and the Ellouise Abbott showroom in Dallas, TX. We will soon be showing in the Ellouise Abbott showroom in Houston and in the Michael-Cleary showroom in Chicago, IL.
