One of the most thrilling aspects of the annual San Francisco Fall Arts & Antiques Show is the designer vignettes that are displayed in the grand entryway. This year’s overall theme for the show is Flower Power, an homage to the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. The vignettes will reflect the floral theme with each of the four chosen interior designers—Kendall Wilkinson, Edward Lobrano, Pamela Babey, and Jay Jeffers—representing a different season of the year.
The designers are chosen by Ariane Trimuschat, the show’s director, and Suzanne Tucker, the chair of the show for the third time in a row. To select the participating designers, Trimuschat and Tucker first look at those who are in the show’s designer circle. “Primarily we look to our designer circle because that’s an invitation only group of designers that we’ve had for a number of years of really top designers,” Trimuschat explained to Haute Living in a recent telephone conversation. “So we have a wonderful group to choose from. There are designers who also come forward and tell us that they’re interested and we always consider everybody. But we’re thrilled with this year’s group. It’s a wonderful group of designers.”
Once the designers are selected, they get to work on creating the most inspiring and beautiful spaces. Each designer is expected to incorporates pieces borrowed from exhibitors on the show floor. Then, they all get to work exclusively with de Gournay, the luxe hand-painted wallpaper line, to create custom wall coverings. It’s an incredible honor and the resulting collaboration is a stunning thing to be a part of—for everyone involved, from the team at de Gourney to the designers to the people who view the rooms at next weekend’s show. In anticipation of the event, we reached out to all four of the designers to learn a little bit more about their vignettes. Here is what they had to say.
Edward Lobrano
“My inspiration was a Volkswagen Bus with Daisy’s and other fun summer flowers painted all over it. It was the summer of the flower child and though it needed to be more sophisticated it needed to still be whimsical and a bit ethereal. I think de Gourney captured the mood I was after.”
Jay Jeffers
“For our vignette, I was obsessed with the color of dark plum peonies I had seen on a recent jaunt to the flower market, so our color palate was set. de Gourney found an image by dutch artist Louis Reith that I soon also became obsessed with as well. The graphic quality of the imagery represented furniture silhouettes and we thought they would make a gorgeous backdrop to the antiquities and contemporary art in our Winter Wonderland vignette.”
Pamela Babey
“Spring. . . a dream. For this collaboration with de Gournay, I wasinspired by the dewy pink dawn and the perfumed Giardini di Venezia; everything is pink, fresh, and new. Dreaming of the evening before, an extravagant late-night picnic, the luscious memory is brought back with the sight of the Palazzo Cinese peeking through the tangled brambles glowing magenta in the rising sun.”
Kendall Wilkinson:
“I was so excited to hear that the theme of this year’s San Francisco Fall Art & Antique Show was ‘Flower Power’ and my mind immediately went to the bold prints of the ‘60s. But, after a moment’s reflection, I began to think in terms of de Gournay and the whimsical, enchanting nature of the brand. Fashion has always proved a fantastic source of inspiration, so with those qualities in mind, I scoured runway recaps until I found an image of a Valentino dress. The way the embroidery draped from the silky, translucent fabric–it was magical. I knew that de Gournay would be able to capture it in wallpaper form and that together we could create an autumnal secret garden hideaway for this iconic event.”
Don’t miss the city’s most inspirational design event and preview gala, which takes place October 25-29.
