Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge at Fashion Week

by Ariston Anderson (RSS feed)
Feb 18th 2010 at 6:01AM

With this year marking the end of Bryant Park tents, it also marks the end of another fashion week mainstay, the backstage lounges. To commemorate the occasion, Patrick McMullan installed a gallery of some of his hottest backstage and frontrow shots over the years. Before the front rows were regrettably filled with Real Housewives, McMullan's gallery shows the likes of Madonna, a young Leonardo, and Ben Affleck enjoying the view from Bryant Park. While the days of A-listers filling up the tents has long passed, if any celebs had made their way to the front lines, they would have passed through the Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge. When it comes to fashion, Mercedes-Benz has always been the leader of Bryant Park, and their backstage lounge, the Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge, has for years welcomed press, celebs and fashion insiders to recharge after a day of catwalks.

Each year Mercedes-Benz partners with a new designer, and this year they chose an interiors classic, Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams, creators of some of the most innovative and comfortable furniture design in the country. The lounge was influenced by Mercedes-Benz latest ad campaign for their new SLS AMG, a modern reinterpretation of their classic 1954 Gullwing. The ad, taken by groundbreaking photographer Nick Knight features German supermodel Julia Stegner, who wears a Gareth Pugh metal dress inspired by the design of the SLS AMG itself. The futuristic photo set the mood for the forward thinking behind Mercedes in the lounge.

Mitchell Gold stopped by the lounge once complete to talk about his vision behind the decor. "We started with recognizing Mercedes-Benz's new introduction of the great SLS AMG," Gold told Luxist. "We thought it was very cool looking, very sleek, and yet when you're sitting in the cockpit you're enveloped in comfort." The resulting lounge mixed modern and classic elements with a white vinyl tufted bar with silver buttons, white Lucite coffee tables, gunmetal vinyl ottomans, and insanely soft white faux suede loveseats.

Beyond the comfort and luxury of the lounge, the setting totally defined the Mercedes experience, in color and textures. "We started with classic Mercedes silver," said Gold, "which they are so famous for in their racing cars and then layered in the pretty orange red color from the great photograph by Nick Knight. And then we mixed in white as we wanted a feeling of clouds, combined with the red creates the feeling of the warmth of a fire."

While the lounge may end with the close of Fashion Week, you can recreate the look in your own home. "Our furniture is all about comfort," Gold told Luxist. "Our fabrics are easy to take care of and soft to the touch, and that is an everyday luxury."

Click here to discover the new Mercedes SLS AMG.

Tags: bryant park, BryantPark, fashion week fall 2010, FashionWeekFall2010, mercedes-benz, new york fashion week, NewYorkFashionWeek, Patrick McMullan, PatrickMcmullan