Rainbow Connection
Ocean Drive Magazine | May/June 2016
Colors that would be appropriate in Michael Wolk’s native New York don’t fly here. Instead of the more somber forest greens, burgundies, or plaids, Miami’s palette takes its hues from the sky, ocean, clouds, and the sun. “Those are happier colors,” says Wolk. Accent colors come from tropical fruits. Rather than layering to make a room warm and comfortable, “here you want it to be free and open.”
“The cliché in Miami is that you should sell everything white,” says Roche Bobois’s US director of communications, Julien Bigan. But in Miami, “we hardly sell anything white. South Americans are very into colors and fabric to match.” Roche Bobois’s best seller for the last three years is the Mahjong sofa, a brightly hued sectional with game tile-like mix-and-match patterned fabrics. Black leather sofas are also popular.
Lalique’s lighting and Art Deco-inspired furniture with modem lines and construction and exquisite materials and craftsmanship seems tailor-made for the Magic City, says Lalique CEO Maz Zouhairi. The Lalique Maison collection includes furniture, lighting, bed and bath linens, cigar boxes, and a $14,000 leather-printed black crocodile backgammon set.
The iconic nest-like chocolate upholstered chair from one of the 10 collections at Adriana Hoyos’s Furnishings in the Design District is comfortable, timeless, and sophisticated. At Wynwood’s Iniva African Concept Boutique, functional ethnic-chic art includes colorful fiberglass stools and masks. Metal bookcases and drawers are crafted from recycled oil barrels.
Tui Pranich, the architecture-trained international designer and owner of Tui in the Design District, prefers “clean, elegant, sophisticated design” using classical elements such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair or Corbusier’s chaise lounge. Says Pranich, “Good design should be long lasting.”