A new fair dedicated to 21st century design has touched down in New York. The inaugural U.S. edition of the Collectible design fair boasts over 100 exhibitors, all purveyors of cutting-edge design. It showcases a broad contemporary spectrum—from pristine minimalism to the colorful and squishy.

The Wednesday preview was packed with Armory and fashion crowds who were revving up for the week ahead ready to look at some creative furniture. Collectible certainly delivered. The international fair has had seven previous editions in Brussels since 2018. Its New York debut at the uber-hip WSA, a Financial District skyscraper with a raw industrial interior, runs through September 8 and prioritizes “unique pieces, bespoke commissions, and limited editions, as well as newly produced works created with functionality in mind.”

FASHION, curated by Gabriella Karefa Johnson. COLLECTIBLE New York 2024. Photo: Simon Leung)

Founders Liv Vaisberg and Clélie Debehault were in New York to preside. “What sets Collectible apart from other fairs is our distinct focus on the present,” the duo expressed via email.

Stepping off of the elevator to the 4th floor, Room 57 Gallery really delivered with a concise, resounding edit: Three objects, dramatically set against a backdrop of crimson velvet curtains and a wrinkly satin drop-cloth. Daniel Widrig’s imposing Trap chair combines sinewy musculature with the sheen of metallic antlers. Brecht Wright Gander’s Mini Yo Burri! light looked like a retro-futurist critter invading from another dimension. The designer also teamed up with Georgia b. Smith on Patriarch, a standing lamp that doubles as a kinetic sculpture. Its silicone bulbs can deflate and perk up. Other iterations of the series are decidedly more breast-like and well-worth an ogle.

Tarek Dada, Wall Lamps (2024). Courtesy of Tarek Dada Studio.

For less anatomical lighting options, the Beirut-based interior designer Tarek Dada’s clever Wall Lamps have so much going on—concealed LED, multicolors, varied textures, rectangles, triangles, perforation!—but remain tasteful and understated and emit the perfect warm glow.

Elsewhere, Mastrangelo Studio’s Ice Melts are like serene glowing crystalline forms and are just the tip of the iceberg of creator Fernando Mastrangelo’s vision.

Mastrangelo Studio, Ice Melts, at COLLECTIBLE New York 2024. Photo: Simon Leung

Situated near a window on a lavender carpeted runway were other offerings, including The Ephemeral Table, a collaboration between artist and chef Fernando Aciar of Fefo Studio and architect/designer Kamilla Csegzi. The latter’s mycelium and garden detritus table has a limited-shelf life by design. It was used as a mold by New York-based Fefo Studio and adorned with handblown glass in its cavities. And like us all, it shall decay into the earth. The pair state: “By giving up part of the creative control, allowing nature to shape the design, the mycelium table is an evolving entity.” Is eco-fungal chic the next wave?

Fefo Studio and Kamilla Csegzi at COLLECTIBLE New York 2024. Photo: Simon Leung

Brooklyn-based designer Nicholas Devlin delivered a maximalist vision with his immersive… whatever it is. Devlin’s inventive table conflagration includes what looks like a canopy of stalagmite narwhal tusks erupting from the floor. it originated as a private commission. “I was given the prompt of ‘can we do something like a strawberry gazebo or something?,’” said Devlin, who was on-hand at the preview. “It was supposed to be a pop art strawberry, but it organically developed and kept changing and changing. I was looking at a lot of Surrealist painters—Hieronymus Bosch, and Remedios Varo. Bosch would do these alien strawberries.” The piece is titled Alchemist’s Folly.

Nicholas Devlin, Alchemist’s Folly (2024). Photo: Simon Leung.

“The definition of a ‘folly’ is something highly ornamental and functionless, like an outdoor structure that serves no purpose,” Devlin explained. “I think that’s so funny. Historically people made follies, like fake ruins on their large estates to give historical presence. That was where I was coming from, sort of thinking about the idea of functional art and wha it means to have a protected space that gives the feeling of enclosure. And this is for a client who works all the time so I wanted to give her this space that was open and would let her enjoy the outdoors, but would also feel a little dreamlike. My favorite part with this stuff is taking crazy ideas and then actually bringing them into reality.”

The Tokio. booth at Collectible. Courtesy of Tokio.

Devlin’s surreal tendrils were contrasted by the neighboring booth of Tokio., who specialize in smart home products with Japanese-inspired refinement. Their suspended amorphous LED Carbon Light was like a graceful drone pendant complimentarily hovering above the booth’s cobalt blue Mori shelves, capping off the whole experience with a dash of refreshing high-tech Zen.

The Collectible design fair runs through September 8 at Water Street Projects, 161 Water Street, New York New York , 10038, from 11:00 A.M- 6:00 P.M., but closes at 5:00 P.M. on Sunday.