by MILAN — Dries Van Noten, fashion boutique architects Gonzalez Haase, and Alexis Martial and Adrien Caillaudaud, former artistic directors of Carven, are just a few of the fashion names you could catch at the curated Brussels design fair in Collectible which will take place from Thursday to Sunday. On Wednesday, the organizers revealed that, due to the success of the fair and its resonance across creative fields, its doors will be opened in New York in September.
With its growing fashion appeal, the fair’s seventh season will also make a return to its original location, the Vanderborght building, a former 1930s department store that was once a contender for the Royal Museums of Fine Arts.
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What sets the fair apart from other collectible art and design fairs around the world, co-founder Liv Vaisberg explained to WWD, is the unexpected connections made there between galleries, architects and even fashion designers over 53,819 feet. center square.
“The architects who work for fashion became very exciting and I wanted them to get to know our world more – we want designers to collaborate with private collectors,” said Vaisberg, adding that the feedback from fashion to Collectible opens people’s minds and is also a place to scout trends.
On the design calendar, Collectible Matter and Shape Paris continues, a new design salon under the creative direction of Dan Thawley, former editor-in-chief of A Magazine Curated By.
Matter and Shape is directly aimed at attracting buyers and editors with a strong connection to the fashion scene. Rick Owens, Sacai, Charlotte Chesnais, Delfina Delettrez Fendi and Kym Ellery were some of the industry names that featured in the inaugural issue.
Returning to Collectible for the second edition in a row is Amca Oval, the sustainable fashion-to-home project launched by Martial and Caillaudaud in 2021. They previously worked with Givenchy, followed by Martial with Paco Rabanne and Iceberg, and Caillaudaud worked at Marc Jacobs, Jil Sander, Tod’s, Saint Laurent and Lanvin. After that, the two of them joined forces as artistic directors of Carven in 2015. “As artistic directors in fashion we have always thought about where our clients live and always wanted to design clothes around a woman in her space,” Caillaudaud added.
For the upcoming edition, they will be showing their Aurora lamp and Aurora Library modular system as well as rugs from their Vibrations series, which are excerpts from hand drawings. The modular system will sit alongside coffee tables, lamps and rugs to create a living room playground dedicated to contemporary life. Each piece is imagined as a limited edition item and is made from circular materials and dead stock.
Caillaudaud said the appeal of Collectible compared to other fairs is the “touch.” “It’s more a place that attracts some important people who want to discover things and are in the mood to meet people,” he said, emphasizing the high quality of galleries and luxury buyers. Le Bon Marchéfor example, who are passionate about design.
“We didn’t expect this fair to have this high level,” he said.
Elsewhere, Swedish designer Ann-Sofie Back’s brand, Gnilmyd Kcab, will show home accessories inspired by the worlds of fashion and art. Themes such as femininity, decadence and vanity inspired the creation of her wig-like Scalp lamp shade, along with her Trophy rug in faux coyote fur.
Morgane Baroghel-Crucq is a fiber artist who joined the program of the Académie des Savoir Faire, Fondation d’Entreprise Hermès, in 2019 and recently won the Grands Prix de le Création de la Ville de Paris. She will be showing her work with silk fibers and metal, together with the other three winners Juliette Berthonneau, Solenne Jolivet and Julie Rochoz as part of a special project.
Vaisberg and her business partner Clélie Debehault started Collectible in 2018. Since then they have exhibited the works of the great builders of the design world such as Muller van Severen and hosted galleries such as the Maniera gallery, Mendes-Wood, located in the Brussels (present in São. Paolo, Brussels, Paris and New York) and Ghent, Atelier Ecru located in Belgium.
Key attractions include the emerging gallery section as well as the Curated section, which serves as a space for radical experimentation and design discovery. This season he will be chaired by Rotterdam-based curator and educator Rawad Baaklini. Vaisberg said she was told by Van Noten and met designer Johan Viladrich, who eventually helped Van Noten design his Sydney and Los Angeles stores, at Collectible.
“The whole sense of the fair as it unfolds shows a lot of interaction between the fair and fashion and this happens more and more as the fair develops. Fashion people get really inspired by design, it’s probably mutual,” Vaisberg said.
Collectible is partnering with downtown New York arts and cultural spaces WSA and Water Street Projects to bring out this latest iteration of the fair during the Armory Show September 5 to 8.
Organizers said the event will blend the expertise of European galleries and designers with their American counterparts, bringing a distinct European flair to the American design crowd.
“This transatlantic collaboration is an expression of our shared commitment to advancing design discourse and providing a platform for designers to showcase their visionary work,” said Debehault.
