cultural capital

Meatpacking Asserts Its Relevance This Weekend

Chairs

Chairs designed by Karim Rashid.Courtesy: Meatpacking District Initiative

Though sofas and desklamps don’t have their own catwalks in Bryant Park, our city is currently awash in product-design festivals. If you can’t follow the clean lines at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair currently at Javits, you may enjoy the more accessible Meatpacking District Design Week, which begins this weekend. Clothier Jussara Lee offers an installation about climate impact, and shops like An Earnest Cut and Sew (bicycles), Auto (wedding rings) and Bodum (coffee) feature elegant takes on the everyday. The gathering emphasizes the “collision” of product design with art and fashion; New York’s Janet Ozzard will be on Saturday’s panel exploring that notion. (The magazine sponsors this and two other discussions.) Don’t get cowed: Promoter Abe Gurko promises that “the whole experience is designed for non-snobs.” So go see Karim Rashid’s Day-Glo chairs (left), tour the market building that will eventually house the Whitney, and weave in and out of cocktail parties every night. You can collide all you like. —Alec Appelbaum

Meatpacking Asserts Its Relevance This Weekend