Reminder to all designers out there, this Thursday is ‘Designers Happy Hour’ at the ALB Design Center of Chelsea.

The first open house will take place this Thursday, February 2, 2012 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the ALB Design Center on 53 W 23rd Street, 9th Floor.  Designers will be served drinks and hors d’oeuvres while viewing the featured products line without an appointment.  

Custom interior luxury product lines will be featured at the Open House, and VW Home will be there too.  All designers are welcome to attend so tell your designer friends about it too!

“We are very excited about the happy hour at the ALB Design Center.  We will have a small showroom displaying objects from Thailand, Indonesia, Africa, Hong Kong, India, and other locales.  Everything that we will be showing is one-of-a-kind so please get there early.  We will also be offering a trade discount so come and shop!  I’ll be there to answer any questions, and hope to see you there.”

– Trudi Romeo, Showroom Director, VW Home

To all fellow designers out there, save the date for ‘Designers Happy Hour’ at the ALB Design Center of Chelsea.

The first open house will take place Thursday, February 2, 2012 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the ALB Design Center on 53 W 23rd Street, 9th Floor. Designers will be served drinks and hors d’oeuvres while viewing the featured products line without an appointment.  

Custom interior luxury product lines will be featured at the Open House, including my line: VW Home.  All designers are welcome to attend!

I will post another reminder about this event a few days before it takes place.

The evening after AD100 I went to a very intimate fundraiser for President Obama that was coordinated by Margaret Russell, Michael Smith, and a few others.  There were around 40 people and he spoke to the group about his policies and the state of the country.  I had my picture taken with him.  He came across as being very warm and had an intimate quality about him that made me feel as though he cared.  It’s amazing how you can run a country, have a family, and be at the center of events like this where you’re constantly meeting and greeting people.  You can understand why Presidents get gray hairs so easily.

The New AD 100

Last week, Architectural Digest had their launch party for the new AD 100.  There are 53 new members of the AD100 on the list since 2010. The list was first published more than two decades ago. Seventeen of this year’s honorees were part of that original list. It was held at the Guggenheim, where an incredible installation by artist Maurizio Cattelan is currently being shown.

Architectural Digest’s Margaret Russell (Editor-in-Chief) spoke a few words — she looked beautiful, in a red Ralph Rucci dress.  For me, it was a really special evening since I had not been on the list for a while due to the policies of the magazine.  I’m very happy that I made the list for 2012.  Good friends of mine such as Tim Corrigan and Roger Thomas are also part of  2012′s AD 100.  The party was stupendous.  There were so many old aquanitences there. 

Here is a link to the online piece, and the issue is also out on newsstands.

http://www.architecturaldigest.com/architects/100/2012/vicente-wolf-associates-inc-ad100-profile

I also did a video interview, and will post the link shortly!

Last night Savoir Beds and SFERRA hosted “In Bed” With Malcolm James Kutner, Amanda Nizbet, Rob Passal, Susanna Salk and myself. I participated in creating a bed setting to celebrate the brand. They had done a series of interviews “In Bed With…” and I had the pleasure of getting into bed with Ronda Carman who authors the “All the Best” blog. You can see the video in my previous post about “In Bed”. It was a fun evening, really good hors d’oeuvres, especially their fried macaroni and cheese bites (fried is always good). A good time was had by all!

more info here

I always find it a little strange judging other people’s work mostly because I don’t like people judging my work. Over the last few weeks I have been a judge in three different contests and I know people are going to come down on me like a ton of bricks for saying this, but I am really surprised by the submissions.

In general the work seemed to lack imagination, they looked more like showroom set ups than something you would find in a home. I also had a hard time finding a cohesive design aim. This bothers me because I know there are incredibly talented people out there…possibly these competitions don’t appeal to them? I was sadly disappointed, as I wanted to be blown away.

One of the competitions did have some amazing landscape submissions, where the designers had limited budgets and extremely limited space. To me the most impressive designs were the simpler jobs that required a great deal of imagination and thoughtfulness and I am happy to say, they did blow me away.

Thank you Luxe!

I want to give a special thanks to Kimberly Christiansen for all her hard work on this project.