The Winter Show 2022 Opening Night Party

The Winter Show’s annual Opening Night Party, held on Thursday, March 31st, was a glamorous evening of cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and fascinating objects to celebrate 68 years of art, design, and history. It kicks off a ten-day event and benefits the East Side House Settlement.

The community-based organization in the South Bronx works to bring quality education and resources to the Bronx and Northern Manhattan residents. Bank of America is the lead sponsor.

The January edition, which traditionally heralds the new year’s social season, was postponed due to the Covid cause surges. So for one time only, they relocated to 660 Madison Avenue, Barneys New York’s iconic former flagship. The Winter Show will return in 2023 to its longtime home at the venerable Park Avenue Armory.

The show’s 2022 Co-Chairs are Lucinda C. Ballard and Michael R. Lynch. Arie Kopelman is Chairman Emeritus. Each year, the fair invites leaders from the worlds of interior design and architecture to lend their voices as design co-chairs, reinforcing the show’s deep relationship with the design community.

This year’s Design co-chairs are Mark Ferguson, Mica Bowman, Corey Damen Jenkins, and Andrew Oyen; the design council honorary co-chairs are Wendy Goodman, Young Huh, and Keita Turner

The design team did a masterful job transforming an empty space into an enticing and festive venue. More importantly, it was nice to see the fabled store, vacant since closing its doors on February 23, 2020, spring back to life.

The only difference is that instead of combining the aisles in search of the latest Comme des Garcons, Alaia, Junya Watanabe, and Dries Van Noten, the approximately 1000 guests perused art, antiques, and designs from over 60 exhibitors spread across the iconic building’s four floors. The booths are arranged non-chronologically to spark lively conversation across periods, regions, artists, and makers in keeping with the fair’s tradition.

Barneys’ windows, made famous by Simon Doonan, are put to good use. The four large-format windows facing Madison Avenue are designed by Corey Damen Jenkins, Young Huh, Keita Turner, and Ferguson & Shamamian architects Mark Ferguson and Andrew Oyen.

To embody the indisputably strong connection between fashion and design (which is heightened because Barneys New York is thrown into the mix), Young Huh added the exuberant designs of Christian Siriano to her window (refer to lead shot).

Keita Turner, dressed in Victor dE Souza’s sleeveless brocade top with cape and pleated tulle skirt, featured two dresses by the designer in her window. Jewelry and decorative arts historian Levi Higgs designed vignettes for the adjacent jewelry box windows on either side of the building’s entrance.

Ralph Harvard designed two of the building’s windows that face 60th Street. One of the windows featured a live performance inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring during the Opening Night Party.

Among those in attendance were Mayor Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Barbara Tober, Victor dE Souza, Wendy Goodman, Kesha Franklin, Keita Turner, Jane Seymour, Christopher Forbes, Jamie Drake, Jerry Lauren, Charlotte Moss, Martha Stewart, Polina Proshkina, Bunny Williams, Tiffany Dubin, Eula Johnson, Leon and Cece Black.

Mica Bowman, Director at UK-based Bowman Sculpture Ltd., looked stunning standing next to the striking Bust of Othello. It is among the most accomplished sculptures by Pietro Calvi, a 19th-century Italian sculpture.

As someone with an insatiable eye, I love antiquing, viewing extraordinary artworks, divine chairs and couches, sculptural art to wear jewels, or unique tapestries and rugs.

I’m a modern art aficionado, so I was entirely in my element visiting Boccara’s booth. At this show, they present a unique tapestry designed by Alexander Calder and woven in the Cauquil-Prince workshop in Paris, along with works by influential artists of the modernist era such as Sonia Delaunay and Jean Lurcat.

Nothing is more authentically American than quilts; monumental compositions in color, pattern, geometry, and representation. They have been made for centuries, primarily by women. “WALL POWER!” a series of spectacular quilts from The American Folk Art, fill one long wall in a room on the lower level.

Macklowe Gallery, the world’s premier dealer of museum-quality 20th-century decorative arts and antique and estate jewelry – specializes in the lamps and glass of Louis Comfort Tiffany. They have an exceptional selection for this show. In addition to French Art Nouveau furniture and objects, there are lithographs by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

As a former magazine editor, I appreciate The Magazine Antiques’ colorful booth. In celebration of 100 years, they filled their space with an eclectic assortment of magazine covers spanning the century. The most recent one is painted by talented artist Andrew La Mar Hopkins, who was also there.

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