As most of you know I attended Westweek last week and had a wonderful time. There was three full days of informative events and discussions. I know I should start my recap with the first event I attended but I just can’t wait to tell you about hearing Barbara Barry speak and finally meeting her. She was at Westweek to talk about her new collection for Kravet and her inspiration behind its development. If you didn’t already know that Barbara is an icon in the design industry then you would have found out when they had to move the presentation to a bigger facility to accommodate a larger audience. Once she started to speak you could tell why she is a staple in the design world. The ease and elegance in which she discussed her trip to Asia and its influence on her new collection made me want to pack my bags and head to the Far East ASAP. The cherry blossom and trellis prints in the collection fully capture the essence of Asia as only Barbara Barry can. The feminine touch and presence of past Barry collections is still evident but a bit of the exotic has been added.
Now is where I explain to you why I didn’t get a picture of the collection and why you should forgive me. The Barbara Barry presentation started at 2:00 and went on until 3:00. The Christiane Lemieux at Robert Allen/Beacon Hill event, which I also wanted to attend started at 2:30 and was scheduled to end at 3:00. With these events slightly overlapping I had just enough time to run downstairs and buy Christiane’s new book “Undecorate” in hopes that I had enough time to actually have her sign it. Once I had a copy of the book in hand I ran back upstairs to Kravet to get in line (a long line) to talk to Barbara and to get my picture taken with her. Once that was finished I had just enough time to run back downstairs to get in line (another long line) to have Christiane sign my copy of her book. In all that haste I have two regrets. One is I didn’t get a picture (any photographers out there want to join me next year?) of the collection and two is I didn’t get to hear Christiane speak about building a design business in the modern landscape. The short time I did get to speak with Christiane was quite lovely. She signed copies of her book with ease and when she talked to you it was as though you were the only one in the room. I wanted to ask her why she never looked rushed or overwhelmed with everything she had going on. Guess I will have to save that question for another time. So that is my recap on two of the design worlds most exquisite ladies and I hope you will all forgive me for my two mini regrets…Happy Designing Everyone!
