ThisNext Blog

Every Spring, the design world unites in full force to invade the monumental Italian metropolis for Milan Design Week. Innovations are revealed; beauty is redefined; Mac reveals their latest scheme for world domination. Designers without plane fare bury themselves in the blogs to get in on the Next Big Tables and “It” wallpaper from overseas.

Then there’s the ICFF.

Held in New York City’s Jacob Javits Center every year, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair comes a month after Milan Design Week. It is the smaller and (by far) the less important of the two shows; the exhibitors know it, the designers know it, and hell, even the curators know it. That said, ICFF has many pluses; the biggest being that it is on home turf. In addition, a ton of New York design houses and bloggers show up, and the Italian Design section insures that the heavy hitters from Milan will make an appearance, even if their newest product debuted a month earlier. Mostly, the ICFF gives us Normals a chance to get personal with those pretty things we’ll probably see in the New York Times Home section a few months from now. Case in point: I finally put my butt on one of those wood pillows.

Stay tuned for my full ICFF roundup.