WestEdge 2015: The West Coast’s Edgy Design Fair Returns To Santa Monica For A 3rd Year
Author:Abigail StoneThis Wednesday, October 22nd, the WestEdge Design Fair returns to The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica for its third year. The event, which runs through October 25th, brings together designers, makers and architects from around the world for a shoppable celebration of the latest in home design with brands and products ranging from kitchen and bath, to furniture and rugs, lighting, and accessories. Alongside live demos, panel discussions, and a speakeasy courtesy of The Set Decorators Society of America and The Robb Report Home & Style, new show highlights including the MADE: MODERN section, which features dozens of independent designers and artisans debuting one-of-a-kind custom crafted furniture, lighting, sculpture and accessories and the Volvo Lounge, designed by DISC Interiors, which offers a luxury space featuring new Carl Hansen & Søn furnishings to relax in while waiting to test drive the XC90 T8, the world’s first seven-passenger plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, from Volvo Car, the official WestEdge automotive sponsor.
We grabbed a couple of the participants as they put the finishing touches on their booths to find out how they came to be involved with the show and what we can expect to see: furniture designer Jason Mizrahi is bringing his designs to the show as part of the Made: Modern section; DISC Interiors David John and Krista Schrock, who recently designed Sunset Magazine’s Idea House, were tapped to create the Volvo Lounge; and interior designer Jenifer Janniere is making her debut at the show as a furniture designer.
“I really love the MADE: MODERN section with the independent designers and the limited edition pieces, it goes well with what I’m trying to go for,” says furniture designer Jason Mizrahi. Inspired by movement and space—“I’m really into making pure, continuous contemporary pieces”—Mizrahi will be sharing three of his latest designs that give form to his ideas.
DeNali is a limited edition table (above) made out of balsa wood and resin. The Alko Chair was inspired by Albers Homage to the Square series and by Mark Rothko. “I was playing with square shapes that could be united in different types of form to create different configurations.”
The Air Chair is crafted from steel—“From the front it looks like a basic chair but when you turn it to the side, it exposes a lot of negative space I’m really interested in negative space, continuous movement, very pure simple form and trying to push the material to its limit, to where it has more expression.”
For David John and Krista Schrock of DISC Interiors, the pressures of designing a temporary, public lounge for Volvo provided an intriguing creative break from their interiors work. “We were approached by Architectural Digest [one of the show’s sponsors] to design the lounge.” says John. “We were inspired by one of Volvo’s slogans, ‘Welcome to your new sanctuary.’” Coupled with the brand’s heritage, the duo came up with the idea of a play on a Swedish summer house. “We wanted to blur the line between a residential home and a lounge,” John explains. Using natural materials, including seagrass flooring, leaning sculptural walls made of white oak and blackened steel, and white oak and leather furniture culled from the recent re-release of the Ole Wanscher line of colonial style furnture from Carl Hansen and Søn, the comfortable space is in alignment with Volvo’s reputation for timeless reliability and contemporary design. “It’s everything we love to do, mixing old and new, vintage and modern for a clean crisp modern feel.” Not to mention that it’s the perfect spot to hang out in while you’re waiting to test drive the XC90 T8.
This year’s WestEdge is particularly exciting for Jenifer Janniere. The interior designer has only started focusing on furniture design in the last year or so. Her pieces, which include a bed, a side table, a console, a shelving unit and a sconce, are fabricated from powder-coated 16 gauge steel with a hand-applied antique brass finish, giving them a look that treads that fine line between modern and classic.
“I went to the show last year when I’d just started developing my furniture line. I thought if I put myself in a show I’d move faster towards development and it would feel more real to me. So I signed up and with a time frame and a deadline everything came together and now I have my first collection. I do everything myself except build the pieces, from the drawings to the product photography.”
