decor-awards

Pickard China, an American classic, has been nominated for a Luxist Award in the category of best dishware.

The story of the Pickard China company began in 1893 when Wilder Pickard established the company in Edgerton, Wisconsin. Later the company moved to Chicago. It specialized in hand-painted art pieces and tea sets. Artists from the Art Institute of Chicago and all over Europe came to Chicago to decorate unique ceramic pieces which are now prized among collectors.

Wilder's son, Austin Pickard, moved the company to its present Antioch, Illinois location in 1930 and introduced the white china with the lion trademark that the company is known for today. Pieces are still made in the Pickard factory in Antioch. Each piece passes through a minimum of 21 stages and three inspections. Patterns are decorated with 24K gold, pure platinum and brilliant cobalt. In 1977, Pickard, Incorporated was selected by the U.S. State Department to manufacture the official china service used by our embassies and other diplomatic missions around the world. Pickard has also been commissioned to produce custom china for Air Force One, Blair House and Camp David and has produced china services for the King of Saudi Arabia, Hilton, Sheraton, and Marriott hotels, General Motors, the U.S. Air Force and the Queen of England.

Continuing to evolve with today's tastes, Pickard makes four modern designs created by star decorator Kelly Wearstler. The Kelly Wearstler for Pickard collection boasts a mélange of styles and patterns ranging from organic to graphic, traditional to modern and delicate to bold. Pickard also produces for patterns for designer and home decor author Charlotte Moss. The company also offers custom china and monogrammed pieces, carrying on a proud American tradition of fine dishware.

Schonbek has been nominated for the Luxist Awards in the lighting category.

Adolf Schonbek started it all as a young man in Bohemia in the year 1870 when he walked away from his family's glassworks business and struck out on his own. His chandeliers quickly grew in popularity, including commissions for Buckingham Palace and the White House. Years went by and the Schonbek name became famous for its crystal chandeliers, although eventually the European factories were lost to the Nazis and Communists and were relocated first to Montreal and later the United States.

Schonbek was acquired by Swarovski in 2007, melding Swarovski's exquisitely cut crystal with Schonbek's masterful chandelier design and manufacturing techniques. The resulting chandeliers are beautiful beyond measure and timeless in their appeal, and surprisingly at home among almost any decor or style. The Schonbek website has a decorating game that allows you to see how the entire feel of a room can be altered simply by changing the chandelier, and how they can enhance everything form an elegant architectural foyer to a cozy country bedroom.

If you're interested in seeing or buying Schonbek for yourself just send them an email and they'll connect you with a showroom near you.

The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show is a nominee in the Luxist Awards' best antiques resource category.

Since 1989, The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show has been recognized the world over as a premier showcase for exceptional quality works of art from antiquity to the present day. The show features some of the world's top dealers and consistently attracts large crowds.

A superb variety of high-quality items are for sale at the fair, including furniture, paintings, sculpture, textiles, ceramics, glass, clocks, watches, arms, armour, rare books, manuscripts, jewelry, objets de vertu, Fabergé, silver, antiquities and ethnographic art. Many of the pieces are of museum quality. Prices start from as little as a few hundred dollars but rise into the millions.

All works are for sale under the strictest vetting conditions. In fact, at its launch the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show was the first fair in the United States to introduce vetting; a stringent set of guidelines designed to maintain the highest standards of quality and authenticity in the works of art on view and for sale. The great value of vetting at art and antiques fairs lies in the safeguards and reassurance it offers to buyers. The vetting committees for the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show combine both academic and commercial expertise in their membership, including museum personnel as well as other eminent specialists.

In 2009, the show, which is organized each year by Haughton International Fairs, will be held from October 16th until the 22nd with 65 exhibitors from around the world, each showcasing some of their best pieces. The fair will be held at the Park Avenue Armory, which is located on Park Avenue at 67th Street in New York City.

Roche-Bobois is a nominee for a Luxist Award for best in furniture.

The company's roots is a tale of two families. In 1950 Jacques Roche bought the old Alexandre Dumas theater on rue de Lyon and built two stores. His sons, Philippe and Francois, joined him and together established the company's developmental strategy. They began to distribute the very best contemporary furniture, which was heavily inspired by Bauhaus designers such as Pierre Paulin and Marc Berthier. At the same time, the Chouchan family were selling furniture in Paris on Boulevard Sebastopol at "Au Beau Bois" (which later became Bobois).

In 1960, Philippe Roche and Patrick and Jean-Claude Chouchan met at a Scandinavian furniture expo in Copenhagen. They soon designed their first catalog which launches the national franchise. They combine their resources and names and Roche-Bobois is launched.

Today, Roche-Bobois is a global leader in design and distribution of home furnishings, while retaining the unique position of molding its furniture designs. Each piece created is the result of close collaboration between designers, manufacturers and Roche-Bobois. It has three categories of furniture: Les Contemporians (avant-garde pieces), Les Voyages (a fusion of ethnic influences), and Les Provinciales (which rethinks traditional French furniture). Roche-Bobois is prolific as it introduces a new exclusive collection every six months.

Roche-Bobois is among the most internationally renowned and exclusive brands in home furnishings. Its products are sold in nearly 30 different countries. The company is expanding its reach rapidly, too. In fact, a new Roche-Bobois store opens every month somewhere in the world.

Steuben Glass is a nominee for a Luxist Award for the best glassware category.

Since 1903, Steuben Glass has been made by hand at its Corning, New York factory. For more than fifty years, Steuben has been the choice of every White House incumbent to present as an official gift of state. In 1993, the Steuben Mobius Prism was presented by the President of the United States as a royal wedding gift to Japan's Crown Prince and Princess Hirohito.

Today, Steuben's state-of-the-art melting process ensures glass that is exceptionally pure and free of even the tiniest visual imperfections. Its skilled artisans work in teams around reheating ovens called glory holes, directed by a master "gaffer." Each gather of molten glass is carried from tank to glory hole, where it is formed "at the fire" with blowpipes, pontil rods, shears, calipers, and other tools little changed over centuries. Finished pieces are slowly cooled in annealing ovens, then cut, polished, and engraved by hand. Each example is minutely inspected before it is signed with a diamond-tipped pen. Imperfect items are destroyed as there are no seconds at Steuben.

Steuben's magnificent 6,100-square-foot flagship store at 667 Madison Avenue was launched to welcome the new millennium in 2000. The store occupies a three-level space in a neighborhood of luxury shops an area recently designated as Manhattan's Crystal District.

Stickley Furniture is a nominee for a Luxist Award for the best in furniture.

The company's roots are humble. In 1900 Leopold Stickley and his younger brother John George Stickley began manufacturing furniture in Fayetteville, NY. Four years later their company was incorporated as L. & J.G. Stickley. Their major retailer in the New York metropolitan area was E.J. Audi who launched his furniture business in 1928. Of all the fine lines he carried, E.J. Audi had an affinity for what Stickley furniture represented in quality construction, finish, and enduring value. In 1974, Audi's son, Alfred, bought the then-struggling L. & J.G. Stickley.

Stickley furniture is simple and pure. Its sofa sectionals range from small fabric-covered sectionals with chaise lounges to large, custom-made leather sectional sofas. Of course, Stickley is best known for its timeless Mission Collection, and that is well represented with everything from solid oak bedroom furniture to Mission cherry dining rooms. Among Gustav and Leopold Stickley's earliest mission oak furniture designs were comfortable chairs with adjustable backs---the forerunners of the ever-popular leather recliner chairs of today. Stickley is also a destination for those seeking oak office furniture.

Stickley Furniture is distributed out of fourteen showrooms located in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Western Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Colorado. The names of its showrooms may vary slightly, depending on their location and are either called Stickley, Audi & Co., Stickley Furniture, or Stickley Furniture. Stickley designers will visit a customer's home and provide design assistance at no charge.

The Maastricht Fair, also called the TEFAF (which stands for The European Fine Art Fair), has been nominated for a Luxist Award for the best antiques resource category.

Commonly called "Maastricht", the fair, which is held in Maastricht, The Netherlands, this is where some of the most distinguished dealers, academics, art critics and collectors in the world gather once a year.

Maastricht was once two separate international fairs until they were merged to form the The European Fine Art Fair. Here, visitors will have the opportunity to view and buy genuine masterpieces from Bruegel to Bacon in addition to some of the world's finest antiques and antiquities.

Perhaps no where else will you find such rigorous investigation of their quality, condition and authenticity. Indeed, there are no fewer than 25 different vetting committees, consisting of 150 international experts, specialized in the fields that are presented at the fair. Each object is examined for its quality, authenticity and condition. Works of art that don't meet the high standards of the The European Fine Art Fair are removed from the stands and locked away until after the fair. In addition, the Art Loss Register, the world's largest database of stolen art, checks the objects against their lists of reported art theft, thus enabling collectors to acquire works of art at the Fair with the highest level of confidence.

The rough estimate for the total value of the objects presented at Maastricht exceeds $1 billion, which doesn't even include the magnificent contemporary jewelry section. All works of art shown by exhibitors at the fair are for sale (apart from stand furniture). The fair is 30,500 square meters, which is roughly the size of six football (or soccer) fields. Typically, there are 240 art and antiques dealers from 15 countries who exhibit at the fair; approximately 82% of the participants are non-Dutch.

Kreiss is a nominee the Luxist Award category of best in furniture.

Since its founding more than 70 years ago, Kreiss has been family-owned and operated. The company is credited with pioneering the "California Look" with its stylish use of natural materials and casual yet elegant and comfortable designs.

Each Kreiss piece is an impressive combination of originality and master craftsmanship. They are made with all natural materials including pure, artfully woven fabrics. Every design is an original, inspired by the lives and travels of the Kreiss family while created by craftspeople whose skills in hand-detailing and hand-finishing is unrivaled. Indeed, everything made by Kreiss is "done by hand", from being handmade, hand-carved, hand-finished and hand-stuffed to hand-packed and hand-delivered.

The Kreiss Collection of furniture, offers hundreds of combinations, encompasses California Casual as well as European Formal, Spanish Mediterranean and other classic styles. This diverse selection allows a versatility to create living spaces that suites homeowners' unique personalities and lifestyles. From a coffee table with a polished travertine top, to an armoire finished with French wax, a bed of hand welded iron or the look of hand distressed wood, the Kreiss Collection offers fine furnishings and accessories for a life of casual elegance.

First available only to the trade, the Kreiss Collection has now grown to 20 retail/trade Kreiss showrooms across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The company has a loyal following of clients, ranging from international celebrities, to captains of industry, to a cross section of discerning homeowners.

The entire Kreiss Collection is designed and manufactured at the company's San Diego headquarters.

Jean Perzel is a nominee for a Luxist Award in the best lighting category.

Jean Perzel was born in Bruck, Bavaria in 1892. He began painting glass as a young child and at age 16 toured around Europe learning new techniques and methods. In 1923, after many years of working and studying, Jean Perzel settled in France and began to specialize in modern interior lighting designs. Perzel is credited with being the first to design exceptionally modern lighting pieces, as well as being one of the very first to focus on the options and possibilities of electricity as well as the various effects that could be achieved with different glass treatments. He is perhaps most well known for his strikingly simple designs that are based in science and logic, and that stand the test of time without appearing old or dated.

In 1933 Jean Perzel began tutoring his nephew, François Raidt, in the fine arts of optics and lighting and eventually handed over the business to him 1951. Jean Perzel lighting, as it exists today, is under the management of François Raidt's son Oliver Raidt and offers a wide array of contemporary but timeless lighting options that hold true to the original influences of Perzel. Sconces, floor lamps, outdoor options, and even lighted pedestal tables make up their current offerings, all available in your choice of size and color/finish. Order a catalog here.