February 9, 2017 By Hadley Keller Architectural Digest
For true fashion devotees, the glitz of Fashion Week may mean swanky parties and front-row access, but it’s also a constant whirlwind of shows, with many attendees running from one to another all day long. To help make the stylish set more comfortable, the shows at New York Fashion Week have long provided lounge areas where editors and other industry insiders can rest and recharge. Often these are no more than a few sofas and coffee tables surrounding much-fought-over power outlets, but this year, guests will have a truly lounge-worthy space courtesy of San Francisco–based designer Ken Fulk. In fact, they may even be hard-pressed to leave.
IMG, the organizers of The Shows, commissioned Fulk to dream up several spaces for resting, working, and hobnobbing between shows at Skylight Clarkson Sq, which has served as the hub of NYFW for the past few seasons. In typical Fulk fashion, the designer went all out.
“I have been mildly obsessed with fashion since I was five years old and would pick out all my own little blue blazers,” Fulk says. “So I feel a bit like it’s in my DNA.” Fulk began with the concept of fame as a loose inspirational thread. “I know it sounds schmaltzy, but as a kid growing up in small-town Virginia, the fashion world seemed so far away,” he says. “All those people were famous. And now, we all, including me, have these Instagram-filtered lives. And that’s not unlike fame: What lasts? What fades away?”
Fulk set out to explore this concept through his signature opulent lens. The three rooms he created are paneled in wood lacquered in eye-popping colors and furnished with luxe leather sofas, club chairs, and accessories in sumptuous materials. “Everything is very decadently layered, which I think shines a mirror on what we often think of as ‘fancy’ or ‘fame,'” says Fulk. “I wanted it to feel splashy and over-the-top.”
“Most of the spaces, because of the temporary nature of Fashion Week, are just white boxes, so there isn’t a lot of personality,” Fulk says. “But we wanted to create these refuges for people to come to. We wanted to create environments where people could feel a bit pampered and luxurious.” And pampered they will be amid the animal hide–covered checkerboard floors and formal furnishings in rich, appropriately Instagram-worthy colors.
“We can’t bear to do anything halfway,” admits Fulk, whose team drove several trucks of furnishings across the country from his San Francisco–area warehouses. He also flew in members of his floral team (affectionately dubbed “Mr Fulk’s Floral Factory”) to oversee the installation of potted plants and cut flowers throughout the space.
In an amazing bit of kismet, Fulk’s team ended up having the opportunity to collaborate with Christie’s to incorporate original works by Andy Warhol in the lounge. “We came up with the fame concept before we teamed with Christie’s, but now we have these walls filled with Warhols, so it really gelled.” Fulk’s team also added a Warhol polaroid photo-op station as well as a cheeky hand-painted wall clock that counts down every 15 minutes to signify Warhol’s famous 1968 statement on the fleeting nature of fame. The Instagram-obsessed are sure to go wild for it. As for Fulk? He has no regrets. “I may go broke,” he says. “But at least I’ll have had my 15 minutes of fame!”
The lounges at Skylight Clarkson Sq will be open throughout the shows, February 9–16.