what and why:
heaps o’ gratitude.

here rests our best of 2014!

who are we?
branders * creative directors * curators * coaches * designers * stylists *  slow luxuriates * social media + pr’ists * visionaries.

plus who and who:
all year we work with excellent, dynamic clients in our areas of passion: art, design, health, music, philanthropy, and style.

how:
we align clients and projects with the trends we see for 2015+++ based on our book and philosophy, “tracing the nine stars.”

why?
these are steps to happiness,
see more about all that here.

meanwhile, here are 2014’s highlights!

January

We opened 2014 thrilled to style a music video with the very talented and accomplished director Andreas von Scheele for singer David Rogue’s song, Breaking The Law.  With cameos by Ben Barenholtz, the legendary film exhibitor, distributor and producer, and starring Rebecca Blumhagen, star of the HBO/Cinemax breakout series The Girls Guide To Depravity; Baek Jiyoung; and Liz Fye, below here are some behind-the-scenes shots by Michael Souter.

Liz Fye, as the vaping villainess. See the video with over 430K happy hits, here.

February

One of the highlights of our rewarding work with client, Janine Francolini, founder of The Flawless Foundation, was her appearance at Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project. We coach and consult for Janine on her speeches and presentations to support her work taking the stigma out of mental illness. See Janine’s popular and influential Huffington Post articles here.

March

Elaine Griffin, NBC host and Newell Turner, editor-in-chief of the Hearst design group and Jade Dressler at the New York School of Interior Design‘s Spring gala, photo by Rio Hamilton. A highlight of the evening was Bill Cunningham of The New York Times arriving on bike, with my hand-written note and invite in hand, to photograph notables. Happily, old school NYC is alive and well. Read more about the NYSID gala here.

Also in March…

…Our interior designer client Scott Sanders‘ 15-year collaboration with noted art collector, Mera Rubell enjoyed their latest project coming to fruition, the renovation of the Lord Baltimore Hotel in downtown Baltimore. Over 500 attended the ribbon-cutting for the 1928 landmark hotel, including the mayor, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and much media coverage. See what CBS News had to say here.

March also saw the opening parties for The Printing House West Village, a downtown loft developed by Myles Horn, Belvedere Capital Management, Angelo, Gordon & Co., sold through the Corcoran Sunshine Group, with Harriet Weintraub PR and designed by Scott Sanders. We placed the design in New York magazine and other media, read more here. Parties ensued with exhibitions by Patrick McMullan’s photography exhibition here and here and here at Peter Davis’ Scene magazine’s Wonder Kids issue.

April

It was thrilling to meet designer Charles Jencks, co-founder of Maggies Centres, the revolutionary cancer-care centers designed by 17 top architects such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Snøhetta. We garnered press for this unique exhibition, concepted by and held at the New York School of Interior Design from The New York Times to Dwell and Metropolis. Notably, the exhibition traveled to the Carnegie Museum of Art. Read more at Archdaily.com, here.

Also in April, our consultancy, Slow Luxury, introduced Scottish designer Iona Crawford in NYC, when the maquettes of the huge Kelpie horses came to Bryant Park…

The stories of the performance in the park and an e-commerce site full of behind -the-scenes of the video, campaign, and collection and all the creatives involved, from long-time collaborators such as re:artiste, Shavonce Armstrong and Alvaro Montagna…

…is all here, on Slow Luxury‘s Happening Now.

May

Elle Decor hosted Scott Sanders and Elaine Griffin in their studios for a Truth in Decorating feature on nesting tables. The playful video is here.

June

For the 9th year, Scott Sanders and Peter Wilson hosted the Schools Out! benefit for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, they are pictured here with Bravo‘s Andy Cohen, Watch What Happens Live host and honorary chair. Below, Scott, myself and Bailey. Read more about this amazing event supporting LGBT youth on Curbed, Hamptons here. 

July

July saw the finish of our brand movie produced for Tracy Stern’s Salon Tea. We styled the photography, shot by Alvaro Montagna and produced the brand collateral for Tracy’s new iced tea collection based on her three favorite cities, New York, Paris and Palm Beach.

Happily, our photo of Tracy appeared in Food & Wine magazine, and you can watch the video here:

 also, in other “wow” media news…

…We placed a feature story and cover of Scott Sanders‘ design for The Lord Baltimore Hotel in Interiors & Sources magazine.

Plans for marketing and social media for our client Dr. Vincent Pedre‘s upcoming HarperCollins’ release, Happy Gut, went into full speed ahead after a meeting with the dynamic Senior Vice President and Director of Creative Development, Lisa Sharkey. 

August

We were thrilled to hear that our curation of the first artist residency project at Fazenda Catucaba, won an award in the international competition, the CODAawards. Fazenda Catucaba is a wireless, organic hotel nestled in 450 mountainous hectares in Brazil. The project spans the land as a series of 10 gates by artist, Pasha Radetski, entitled Portal do Sul.

Luminaries followed Pasha’s installation, work from the Campana Brothers with homes by Marcio Kogan came next at this stellar destination. We look forward to the celebration during ICFF with Interiors magazine in 2015. (Truth told, what we really look forward to is visiting this remarkable place, envisioned by our client and friend, Emmanuel Rengade.)

Marrakech came to NYC, when our client and friend came for a visit, Sandra Zwollo of Harem Resort. The group we gathered, Shelley Lewis of Sacred Space NY; Maria McElroy, Master Indie perfumer at AromaM and myself, made for a perfect pow-wow at The Cloisters. Look for more in 2015 about our Slow Luxury project.

September

The Australian Financial Review‘s magazine, Luxury, interviewed and quoted me and my partner, Fiona Fraser, as Slow Luxury for an article entitled Patient and Particular in Provenance and you can read it here.

Also in September, we co-produced 6 documentary episodes for CNN‘s European affiliate, n-tv, featuring Consuelo Vanderbilt Costin and her life in NYC with Filet Films of Berlin. The segments aired Fall 2014 in Austria, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland.

We also styled sets and clothing for Consuelo Costin’s Body Needs video, directed by Rafael Feldman, which did quite well on the charts! See the Body Needs video here with the very handsome, very limber British actor, James Rees.

October

Notable for October was the D+D Building, John Rosselli showroom’s hosting of a book party for Scott Sanders book, The Insider Guide to the Lord Baltimore Hotel & Baltimore, too, published by Suzy Slesin’s Pointed Leaf Press. We placed Scott on the speaker roster at the commercial design trade show, Neocon, where he also hosted a tour of The Lord Baltimore Hotel.

November

In November we worked with Satya Scainetti, founder of Satya Jewelry and the teams at her foundation, The Satya Foundation and Commit2Change to produce a gala held at the NY Indian Consulate benefitting school programs for Indian children. Notable attendees included Ed Norton,actor; Shauna Robertson, producer; Cassandra Seidenfeld, actress and Baldev Duggal of Duggal. Many thanks to the Consulate and Lalitha Sarma. Read about the event here at Black Tie magazine and on our blog here. 

December

This December, we were honored to support Iris Dankner’s Holiday House, the annual designer show house with proceeds benefiting The Breast Cancer Research Fund. The event is a spotlight for the industry with Christopher Hyland, co-chair, with Alexa Hampton, Geoffrey Bradfield, Mario Buatta and Thom Filicia as Design Chairs and Avenue and Traditional Home magazines, sponsors. The energy, passion and creativity of interior designers is remarkable. A wonderful evening for a wonderful cause and you can read all about my romp with the people, places and things from the premiere evening shining here.

Each room is a different holiday of the designer’s choosing. Here I pose happily with Louis Navarette in his humorous, exquisitely detailed “Mischief Night” room. See New York Social Diary’s rendering of the evening where the above picture of us appeared.

We sail into 2015 with so many exciting projects on deck for clients, including our work with Sacred Space NY, a meditation, healing pod nestled neatly on tony 57th street between Chanel and Prada.

This sacred space is the essence of Slow Luxury and a wish for all our friends, collaborators and clients for peace, serenity, success, balance, friendliness, and LOVE in 2015.