A fresh batch of designers are teaming up with beloved brands this season just in time for High Point Market. Keep an eye out for these eight first-time partnerships as they make their debut.
Wildwood x Cheryl Luckett
Created in partnership with Wildwood, interior designer Cheryl Luckett’s debut collection of furniture, lighting and accessories pulls from her Southern and African-American roots—showcasing a classic, formal aesthetic with an added bend toward rich textural elements like Kuba cloth, lace and pen shell. Luckett traces her focus on textiles and upholstery back to a childhood spent surrounded by women who sewed and left pattern books around for the budding designer to flip through. “Anytime I’m designing, especially a product, it’s important for it to be a reflection of who I am or where I create from,” says Luckett. “That’s also how I tend to create for my clients—in the same way that I dig into who they are when I’m putting together a space for them, I use that process to create products.”
RoomMates x Nikki Chu
Artist and interior designer Nikki Chu combined geometric forms and monochromatic details to create her first wallpaper collection in collaboration with RoomMates, York Wallcovering’s peel- and-stick division. In line with Chu’s “modern globalism” aesthetic, the designer used her experience visiting places like Africa, Bali, India, East Asia and the Caribbean to influence her creations.
Alden Parkes x Jacob Lukas
“Palladio meets Palm Beach” was the guiding principle for the Worth Avenue Collection—a furnishings line from Kurt Miller and Lukas Mack of Jacob Lukas Design for Alden Parkes. Made in Italy, the pieces nod to their place of origin with clean lines, muted gold accents, rich finishes and custom hardware, while also showcasing classic Greco-Roman architectural elements like fluted details and column-like structures. “Collectively, we agreed that every piece must not only be sculpture in itself but have storage capabilities and a functional purpose,” says Miller.
Nathan Anthony x Sahara Novotna
When Nathan Anthony creative director Tina Nicole went looking for a collaborator well versed in a variety of mediums to help her explore new materials for upholstery, she found the perfect partner in multimedia artist Sahara Novotna. The resulting Alais Collection combines the best of each designer’s knowledge: Nicole designed the upholstery frames, established the scale of the ball feet and selected the fabric covers, while Novotna crafted the 8-inch spheres from resin using a process she developed herself. “Today, the savvy interior designer knows they deliver value by specifying furnishings and decor items that their clients won’t discover on their own,” says Nicole. “We are creating these products for them. It’s more than furniture; we’re giving them a story to tell.”
Universal x Erinn Valencich
Los Angeles–based interior and product designer Erinn Valencich has partnered with Universal Furniture for a furnishings collection drawn from modern European, Japanese and Californian influences. The 45-piece assortment exhibits clean lines and sculptural forms in a variety of finishes and materials, including dark walnut, white lacquer, silver leaf and black chrome. Surprising details can be found in unexpected places, such as
inside a leg or underneath a table top. “I really love to design pieces that I dub ‘modern classics’—something that can be used in a traditional home to give it a little bit more of a modern flair, or go into a more contemporary home to warm it up with a lot of texture and streamlined details,” says Valencich.
Bria Hammel x etúHOME
Teaming up with EtúHome, designer Bria Hammel has tapped the brand’s sustainably sourced materials and European artisans for a collection of dual-function wood, glass and ceramic kitchen accessories in a neutral palette of gray, cream and natural tones. Highlights include a semi-oval wooden serving board marked with a strip of contrasting timber, handthrown stacking bowls and a wooden pinch-pot tray designed to be placed within arm’s length of the cook. Hammel jumped into the creative process by imagining her new creations at home in a French outdoor kitchen. “Whether you’re cooking in your kitchen with the fresh air blowing through your windows or setting up an al fresco dining table, we wanted to take those light, organic details we love about the spring and summer seasons but give them that classic, French aesthetic we’re endlessly inspired by,” she says.
Visual Comfort x Paloma Contreras
For Visual Comfort, interior designer Paloma Contreras lifted details from her travels in Paris for the creation of her debut lighting collection, which includes chandeliers, pendants, wall sconces, and table and floor lamps. “It was important for there to be a sense of versatility as well as impeccable attention to the details,” says Contreras. “The pieces in the collection are deceptively simple, with clean-lined silhouettes, but the details are truly next level.”
Chelsea House x Kristi Nelson
Interior designer Kristi Nelson has joined forces with Chelsea House for her debut collection of travel-inspired furniture, lighting, accessories and mirrors. The assortment is organized into four globally inspired design themes: contemporary neoclassical, art deco, grotto and nature’s inspiration. Sketching out the collection, the designer let her imagination run wild through memories of her travels through the U.K., France and Italy, along with her former home in Los Angeles and her new home in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. “In my professional life, drawing is always with intent for my client, so there are boundaries and objectives that drive it.” says Nelson. “Creating for this line was a joy because I could just let myself go, with no boundaries or predetermined outcomes. The ideas came, and I drew them as they came.”
Carrier and Company x Soicher Marin
In partnership with third-generation art house Soicher Marin, interior designers Mara Miller and Jesse Carrier of Carrier and Company have created Open Studio—five collections of artwork inspired by the pieces they’ve selected for projects over the years. The entire assortment includes nearly 150 images organized into five categories: modernist collage and negative space; gestural figures; gestural botanicals; transparency and color studies; and abstract color blocks. According to Carrier, the collaboration draws upon the work of artists both past and present, acknowledging the impact a great piece of art often brings to Carrier and Company–designed interiors. “The simple pleasure of the work and how it crafts an interior has always taken precedence over its provenance,” says Carrier. “The Open Studio Collection captures the refinement, eclecticism, color and excitement that inspire our interiors.”