the Designer Pages blog

This month’s packed social calendar brought me down from midtown last night to Knoll’s vast and gorgeous showroom in the Meatpacking District for Apartment Therapy’s monthly design Meetup. Yesterday’s event featured a candid conversation between the site’s publisher Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan and featured speaker Sandy Chilewich, the founder and creative mind behind her eponymous design company Chilewich (she is also a lovely person by the way, I had the good fortune of chatting with her for a whole 20 minutes while Knoll demo’d some new goods). What emerged from an intensive Q&A (Maxwell, bravo for your probing, intelligent questions) was an illuminating dialogue about Chilewich’s professional journey from scrappy young shoe and jewelry designer to internationally recognized purveyor of vinyl tabletop accessories, flooring and window shades.

Though Chilewich shared a number of very valuable insights about the road to success, most striking to me was her advice to look for ideas and products with “continued creative longevity…simplicity….[and] practicality”. Very well put, I’d say. This, she states is what accounts in large part for the enduring popularity of Chilewich’s vinyl placemats, ones you can find at Bloomingdale’s and at MoMA’s design shop. I was a first-timer to this Meetup but after last night’s presentation there is no question that AT’s “offline” events are going to become a regular part of the Designer pages social rounds.

Otherwise, don’t forget to check out the newly launched Generation Chair by Meetup host Knoll, an exceptional piece of seating that made it’s cameo in worldwide markets on Tuesday but launched nationally during NeoCon 2009 where it won a gold. If you are indeed in the market to spend some $1,250 on a task chair then I’d also recommend the Generation Chair-dedicated website SitHowYouWant - one that reminds me a bit of the Nike micro-site for the infinitely customizable Presto sneaker available once way way back in the day.