Celebrating Design
We, at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, are always developing new products for our various lines of merchandising and we are always looking for inspiration. Last February, I traveled to Frankfurt, Germany to attend Ambiente, the world’s largest and most important trade fair for consumer goods for the table, kitchen, household, giving and decorating, as well as for home and furnishing accessories. This exhibition takes up an area the size of 48 soccer fields and is just mind-boggling! I was so impressed during my first trip to the Ambiente Fair, where we saw so many wonderful designs and many beautiful products incredibly crafted. On May 17th, during New York Design Week, I decided to host a VIP event called, “Dialogues in Design: A New York Preview on Ambiente 2013,” at my company headquarters at the Starrett Lehigh building in New York City. We asked Nicolette Naumann, the Vice President of Messe Frankfurt/Ambiente and the show organizer to be my co-host. During the gathering, I spoke about my impressions of the Frankfurt show and Nicolette Naumann presented a first glance on next year’s Ambiente trade fair. We were very happy to open our space to our friends from Messe/Frankfurt Ambiente. And speaking of Ambiente, on Saturday, I just returned from Tokyo where I was at another exhibition of interior design products, also sponsored by Ambiente.
1 Here I am at our VIP event with Nicolette Naumann, Vice President of Messe Frankfurt/Ambiente. Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
2 My dress for this occasion was a Balenciaga. Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
3 My friend, Chef Pierre Schaedelin, created amazing hors d'ouevres. Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
4 Here he is putting on the finishing touches. Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
5 There were deviled quail eggs with wasabi caviar on baguette slices.
6 And beets and goat cheese with caramelized pecans on crispy bretzels
7 Very colorful green asparagus, fava beans, and carrot flan
8 Roast duck breast with rhubarb marmalade
9 And red spring radish with dip
10 The hors d’ouevres were passed on yellow painted trays.
11 Pierre's servers wore ties to match the trays.
12 The colorful floral arrangements were composed of spring peonies and orange ranunculus.
13 There was red wine, May wine (sweet woodruff infused Riesling), and sparkling mineral water served with strawberry and orange garnish.
14 Also available were cocktails of orange Aperol with Cremant d’Alsace and a St. Germain cocktail with Cremant d’Alsace.
15 At the podium with Nicolette Naumann exchanging some humor Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
16 Arlene Hirst - journalist, Susan Magrino - my publicist, and Jennifer Northrop - from Cooper Hewitt Magazine
17 Jeanne Meyer - SVP, Communications, Heather Kirkland - Administrative Manager, Special Projects, and Deb Dowling - PR Director
18 Gita Mirchandani and David Farber Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
19 Jaime Derringer - of DesignMilk.com, Bobby Berk - of BobbyBerk.com, Caroline Williamson - of DesignMilk.com Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
20 Carmen Natschke - editor of TheDecoratingDiva.com Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
21 Heather Kirkland - Administrative Manager, Special Projects, Thomas Joseph - TV Chef, and Daisy Schwartzberg - my make-up artist Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
22 Manvi Drona-Hidalgo - interior stylist and author of popular lifestyle blog MOCHATINI. Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
23 Anita Hackethal and Birgit Lohmann - of DesignBoom.com Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
24 Warren Shoulberg - HomeTextilesToday.com and Peter Sherwood Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
25 Erdmann Kilian - Director Marketing Communications/Press for Messe Frankfurt and David Farber Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
26 Rio Hamilton - Director at Niedermaier and James Andrew - interior designer Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan
27 David Scott - interior designer and Nida Lee Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
28 Jennifer Gorsche - A/N Blog and Nicole Haddad - New York Spaces Magazine Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
29 Jeanne Meyer, Nicole Sutliff, Amy Wilkins - SVP, Publisher, Martha Stewart Weddings Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
30 Jeanne Meyer and Lisa Gersh - President and COO of MSLO Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
31 Posing with Nicolette Naumann and Patsy Pollack - Senior EVP of Merchandising Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
32 Jennifer Northrop, Kevin Sharkey, and Patsy Pollack Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
33 Nicolette Naumann Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
34 Laura Beck and Aaron Schurgin of Thom Filicia Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
35 Jessica Caldwell, Bryan Mason and his wife Jeanine Hays - blogger and founder of AphroChicShop.com Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
36 Gita Mirchandani, Nicolette Naumann, and Erdmann Kilian Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
37 Amy Stahulak, Samantha Schnabel, Nicole Sutliff - all from the Susan Magrino Agency PR Photo - AMBER De VOS/PatrickMcMullan.com
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
Martha, you don't know just how glad I am to be able to see, once again, all your great pictures. Everyone and everything looks happy and delicious...in that order.
I went to Germany 17 years ago next month and that is one clean, beautiful country! I hope you got to visit some of it while there.
Gloria G!!
Posted by: Gloria | June 11th, 2012 at 4:12 am
Happy to see these great pictures and that you have returned from Tokyo with more design information for us. Great news that Spain is bailed out and economy has a chance of recovering now that EU is on track.
Posted by: ann | June 11th, 2012 at 4:29 am
Welcome back from Japan Martha! I'm excited to see what new products you and your talented team at MLSO create for us, you never disappoint! Your event celebrating design during anew York Design Week looks like it was a success. The accessories you wore with the beautiful Balenciaga dress was spot on, very pretty!
Posted by: Cindy F | June 11th, 2012 at 7:55 am
Hi Martha, Thank you for sharing another delightful, inspiring blog about new designing ideas from Germany, Japan, and all over the world! Nicolette Naumann is another brilliant person and how nice to have her at this great event at your Starrett Lehigh building in NYC! Your MSLO team sure learns a lot from you and other designers to create wonderful products for all of us to enjoy! It's so much fun to learn so many things about 'living' from you and I feel so inspired enjoying every blot you share! These photos are once again wonderful to see! I love the outfit you are wearing and you look so gorgeous and happy again! How fun to see chef Pierre and all of the delicious hors d'ouveres-yummmmm!!!! The floral arrangement was beautiful, also! Photo #15 is so cute with you and Nicolette! Fun to see Susan Magrino again! Everyone else looks so happy, especially Thomas Joseph and Kevin Sharkey!! Welcome back from Japan and hope you have another great day! Off to see F&S showing us some of your delicious wild strawberries! Jan PS-Welcome back Gloria G.-I also have a great brother who fixed my computer! Jan
Posted by: Jan Erickson | June 11th, 2012 at 10:03 am
Ooh how interesting this is! Love your swishy dress...the color is fresh and you look so youthful.
Posted by: Sherey | June 11th, 2012 at 10:28 am
Martha,
Thanks for sharing this blog.
Posted by: KLBrown | June 11th, 2012 at 10:55 am
Martha, looked like a great event. The food looks so good in those pictures, I'm glad it is almost lunch time!
Posted by: Cal | June 11th, 2012 at 11:48 am
Hi Martha,
Thanks for introducing us to Ambiente and I wouldn’t be surprised if all the people who attended your gathering are now making plans to attend next year. I checked out some video and really liked the Talent’s promotional program. I hope this is the link: http://ambiente.messefrankfurt.com/frankfurt/en/besucher/events/talents_teilnehmebeding.html The video showed some really neat inventions and one was a portable table that you blow up with air. I can just imagine a walk to the park with your lunch and portable table. Another one showed a metal ring around a work table in the kitchen where you can hang your kitchen gadgets for easy access. That was pretty neat and so was the portable tray to hang on a bar in fast food restaurants that are equipped with it. I can only imagine how exciting it was to see over 4,000 exhibitions. I hope they had plenty of places to rest from all the walking you must have done. I noticed they’re already getting ready for next year and what an undertaking it must be. I’m curious to see which exhibits most intrigued you, in new product form of course. Trish
Posted by: Trish | June 11th, 2012 at 11:52 am
Hi, Thank you for inviting Design Milk to this event!
We were thrilled to attend and we are huge fans of what Nicolette and her team are doing. Ambiente, Tendence and all of the other amazing exhibitions that she is a part of are so inspirational. Cheers!
Posted by: Jaime from Design Milk | June 11th, 2012 at 3:32 pm
MS. Fashionista!!!!! you rocked that outfit, especially those fairy princess shoes!!!!!!!
Posted by: memoir | June 11th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
What a fantastic event! Thank you so much for inviting us. We loved learning about Ambiente, and you just might see us there next year!
Posted by: Jeanine Hays | June 12th, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Awesome,Inspiring,Extraordinary as usual!
Posted by: Katescana | June 13th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Dear Martha,
You are one beautiful woman!
Posted by: Sam | August 6th, 2012 at 9:07 pm