Best of NYCxDESIGN 2025. Simple Flair Apartment – Photo by Simple Flair.
Design. From May 15 to 21, NYCxDESIGN takes over New York City, with a special focus on the local independent design scene. This year, collectives and group exhibitions will take centre stage. As usual, we selected 14 must-visit exhibitions, starting from the ICFF Fair, which hosts the talent-driven platform Wanted, and the inaugural Shelter fair.
At ICFF, music festival Tomorrowland, furniture brand Ethnicraft, and architect Dieter Vander Velpen launch Morpho – Courtesy of the fair.
ICFF is back at the Javits Center with a celebration of creativity from around the globe. This year’s theme, Designing in Harmony, spotlights human-centred, sensory-rich, and multicultural design through immersive exhibits and programming. The North America’s leading fair for contemporary furniture design features nearly 400 brands from 35+ countries, including group exhibitions from Brazil, France, Italy, and Romania.
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At the core is WANTED, a platform supporting the next generation of talent through showcases and mentorship. Through programs like Launch Pad, Look Book, the Design Schools Workshop, and the Schools Showcase, the fair within the fair empowers emerging talent with mentorship, exposure, and connections that can shape their creative futures. From global legends to rising stars, ICFF 2025 is more than a fair—it’s a pulse check on the future of design. Come curious, leave inspired.
Photo by Afternoon Light.
The inaugural Shelter by Afternoon Light launches at the iconic Starrett-Lehigh Building on Manhattan’s West Side, welcoming both design pros and the public for three days of inspiration. This new fair showcases exhibitions, product debuts, and curated collections from over 100 established and emerging brands and creatives. Highlights include Design Dysphoria x Gotham, Fort Standard, Matter Made, Moooi, Roll & Hill, Stellar Works, Tom Dixon, and more. It’s a must-see moment on the NYC design calendar.
Courtesy of Paraphernalia organisers.
Curated by Eliza Axelson-Chidsey and Jess Fügler and hosted by Fredericks & Mae, the Paraphernalia group show explores the theme of Desire through the eyes of eighteen emerging and established artists and designers. Each piece fits within a 12” x 12” footprint, offering playful, thought-provoking interpretations. Highlights include Lauren Davies’ funfair-inspired kitchen funnels, Ola Mirecka’s Greek-style vessel reflecting on tech and intimacy, Kirsi Enkovaara’s calming sculptural forms, and Juntos Project’s smooth, stone-like hand mirror. Tom Gottelier rounds it out with a wall clock displaying a real-time view of the solar system. It’s small-scale design with big emotional impact.
Photo by Brooke Holm, courtesy of Colony.
New York-based design gallery and platform Colony presents The Independents, a group exhibition celebrating the independent American design community through works by 24 design studios from Colony’s past, present and future roster. “This year, we asked our current designers: Why did you choose this path paved with unending challenge? What drives you to keep going?” Highlights include pieces by Chen & Kai, Moving Mountains, Aaron Poritz, Hiroko Takeda and more. Read more…
Photo by Sahra Jajarmikhayat.
In a time when media noise and misinformation shape how we see the world, Forced Perspective brings together 15 New York-based artists for a powerful group show curated by Caleb Ferris, Kiki Goti, Vincent Staropoli, and NJ Roseti. Through immersive scenes and collectible objects, the exhibition offers a space for reflection, resistance, and dialogue. It invites viewers to question dominant narratives, rethink their environment, and explore how art and design can liberate perception in a time of distortion.
Photo by Chris Mottalini, courtesy of Egg Collective.
Egg Collective presents Knock on Wood, a warm and thoughtful exhibition celebrating wood as more than just a material—it’s memory, myth, and meaning. At a time when fast, extractive approaches dominate design, this show invites a slower, more intentional way of creating. Featuring works by Natasha Alphonse, Joshua Vogel, Hildegarde Haas, Julian Watts, and more, the pieces embrace wood’s natural beauty and storytelling power, blending folklore with formalism. The exhibition invites you to see this humble, ancient medium through a reverent, modern lens.
Courtesy of MUJI.
Design enthusiasts can experience small MUJI, an innovative collaboration between Japanese retail brand MUJI and renowned miniature photographer and artist Tatsuya Tanaka. This miniature art exhibition features meticulously crafted dioramas, made using everyday MUJI products—think clipboards as building facades or cotton swabs as streetlamps. Socket boards become skyscrapers, biscuits become furniture, and Times Square is made of rubber stamps. Read more…
Garbage of New York City by Justin Gignac – Courtesy of NYCxDESIGN 2025.
NYCxDESIGN x Souvenir redefines what a souvenir can be, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary. Featuring 73 visionary artists and designers—including Joey Zeledon, Karim Rashid, Scott Henderson, and David Weeks—each piece captures the charm, energy, and contradictions of New York City. Curated with Cool Hunting and sponsored by Kikkerland Design, the exhibit is beautifully staged by Boym Partners. Visitors can explore, experience, and even take home a piece of the city. Justin Gignac proposes a transparent cube containing “of our city’s most ubiquitous icons,” garbage, which was hand-picked, sealed and preserved in signed, numbered, and dated boxes.
Photo by Logan Jackson.
Step beyond the ordinary and into CHROMA, an immersive installation of colour, texture, and tactile wonder presented by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York City. Curated by Swiss designer and Sula Creative Director Nadja Stäubli, the exhibition explores a vibrant world where art and design converge. Flowing fabrics, soft surfaces, and meticulously crafted objects invite exploration, each embodying a narrative of Swiss precision and artisanal mastery. Read more…
Photo via IG, follow @amelieduchalard.
Amelie du Chalard, the Paris- and New York–based gallery, presents Still Growing, a design exhibition curated by Emily Marant that thoughtfully explores the ever-evolving connection between design and nature. Showcasing the work of seven designers—including NYC talents Jack Simonds, Luke Malaney, and duo Alexis and Ginger—the exhibition celebrates what is unfinished, evolving, and quietly alive. Here, nature isn’t just a backdrop or aesthetic choice; it’s an active, adaptive force woven into the creative process. Still Growing invites visitors to see design not as something static, but as something that breathes, shifts, and grows with its surroundings.
Courtesy of Emma Scully Gallery.
Emma Scully Gallery presents Flower Beneath the Foot, a heartfelt exhibition celebrating the creative bond between celebrated textile designer Madeline Weinrib and the late poet, artist, and critic Rene Ricard. Their rug collection, first imagined in 2009, is the result of a decades-long friendship and artistic exchange. The show also features Dana Arbib’s dreamy chandelier, inspired by Ricard’s poetry, and Simone Bodmer-Turner’s elegant Molten Lily Sconces in cast bronze.
Courtesy of the gallery.
Galerie Philia presents The Reveries, a poetic exhibition by designer Elsa Foulon. Featuring sculptural ceramics with soft, organic forms, the show blurs the line between art and design. Each piece reflects on the beauty of fleeting moments, inviting quiet contemplation. With flowing lines and a focus on space, light, and texture, Foulon’s work transforms simple materials into meditative, emotionally rich objects.
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Italian creative agency Simple Flair inaugurates its latest project—the Simply Fair Apartment—perched on the 68th floor of The Greenwich, a striking high-rise designed by Rafael Viñoly. More than just a stylish residence, this apartment will be an active, year-long creative hub open by private appointment. It’s set to host a dynamic lineup of events that bring together designers, industry insiders, and creative minds. With this initiative, Simple Flair celebrates the vibrant cultural dialogue between Milan and New York, Italy and the US. Featured collaborators include Halo Edition by Mandalaki, Modernab, SEM, and more, each contributing to the apartment’s distinctive, design-forward atmosphere.
Courtesy of Assemby Line and Juntos Project
Assembly Line is unveiling something truly special—a complete redesign of their Atlantic Avenue retail space, transformed into an immersive installation that plays with how we see and feel colour. Inspired by a passage from Josef Albers’ classic Interaction of Color, the show explores the shifting nature of colour perception and how light and shadow affect how we experience colour on three-dimensional forms. The installation features stunning work from New York-based Juntos Projects, alongside contributions from Rye, Elitis, Blue Green Works, and more.
Daisy sconce by Blue Green Works for the Every Shadow Is a Color exhibition by Assembly Line – Courtesy of Blue Green Works.
