vip in the city

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams launch

A few weeks ago, I received in the mail an invitation to attend the opening of the new Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams flagship in SoHo. I’ve been anticipating the store’s arrival since I first learned of it earlier this year, and since I have an appreciation for the line’s “Comfortable Modern” aesthetic – heretofore only available locally at ABC Carpet & Home – I thought I’d stop in to take a peek. One RSVP plus one later and we were all set to go.

I admit I was curious, too, to see the inside of Andre Balazs’ 11-story tower, known as One Kenmare Square. To Balasz, anyway. Almost everyone else knows the building as 210 Lafayette. Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Mayner Architects designed the rippled glass façade, which was unveiled in January 2006 to somewhat less scorn than has been heaped upon the similarly curvy Astor Place’s Sculpture for Living. Balasz, whose other properties include New York’s Mercer Hotel, The Raleigh in South Beach and the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, originally had planned to build the first of his Standard Hotel chain on this site (originally a parking lot), but revised his concept when economic conditions changed after 9/11.

I guess I wasn’t really sure what to expect of what essentially amounted to an after-work ribbon cutting. Certainly not a velvet rope, swirling floodlights, a green carpet (it’s the new black! Er… red!), four women working the check-in table and black-blazered door security.

A long bar was set up along the back wall of the ground level space as a team of black-clad servers circulated through the crowd with multi-tiered trays of hors d’œuvres: mini-burgers – always a crowd pleaser – papers cones of pommes frites, vegetable dumplings, mini-lobster rolls… Most striking of all – aside from the novelty of a full blown party inside a furniture showroom – was the sheer beauty on display. Not only the furnishings — 12,000 square feet on 2 floors — but the attendees, men and women! (And I don’t think it was just the champagne goggles.)

I was sad to have to tear myself away for far less glamorous endeavors.