New York City’s high temple of luxury, Bergdorf Goodman, transformed into an intoxicating salon of art, design, and desire on Feb. 19 as the grand opening of Salon Art + Design’s latest exhibition on the store’s fabled seventh floor became the night’s most coveted affair.
The city’s most discerning collectors, curators, and connoisseurs of beauty swanned through the space, sipping champagne and murmuring in hushed, reverent tones over the exquisite objects before them. A celebration of artistry, innovation, and craftsmanship, the exhibition — running through April 13 — fuses collectible design with the sartorial opulence of Bergdorf’s, proving yet again that art and fashion are not distant cousins but twin flames, locked in a centuries-old romance.
This collaboration marks a triumphant new chapter for Salon Art + Design, long revered as the leading platform for collectible design. By infiltrating the hallowed halls of Bergdorf’s—a retail cathedral where the well-heeled and well-versed convene—the exhibition places Salon’s visionary curation directly into the beating heart of Manhattan’s elite.
Among the luminaries gracing this dreamscape, Onishi Gallery showcased the ethereal mastery of Japanese craftsmanship, bringing delicate yet formidable works that whisper of heritage and innovation. Galerie Gabriel exuded Parisian chic with pieces that felt plucked from the salons of aristocrats who understood beauty as power.
J. Lohmann Gallery brought a selection that was nothing short of a collector’s fever dream—modernist forms fused with Old World refinement. Liz O’Brien reminded the crowd why she reigns supreme in the world of 20th-century design, curating a vignette that blended historical gravitas with contemporary edge. Verso transported visitors into an elegant, almost cinematic world of surreal yet functional design, while Room 57 Gallery dared to present works that danced on the line between art and alchemy, challenging notions of form and materiality.
But the pièce de résistance—the showstopper that had every woman in the room recalculating her life’s ambitions—was a gobsmacking diamond-encrusted Birkin sculpture, a monument to opulence so arresting it could bring even the most jaded collector to their knees.
A dazzling love letter to excess, it stood as the ultimate fusion of art, fashion, and aspiration—a reminder that luxury is not just about possession, but about the sheer audacity of dreaming without limits.
The ambiance was further heightened by the sublime artistry of Color Atelier, whose limewash paint, meticulously hand-applied throughout the exhibition, lent the space an ethereal glow—soft, tactile, and rich with the kind of lived-in luxury that only true craftsmanship can produce.
The atmosphere pulsed with a kind of heady, almost hedonistic reverence. Glasses clinked. Conversations sparked. Deals whispered. Here, under the shimmering glow of Bergdorf’s chandeliers, was proof that art was not merely to be observed but to be pursued, possessed, and woven into the fabric of one’s life.
By the evening’s end, as the last guests drifted down the gilded escalators and into the Manhattan night, one thing was certain: Salon Art + Design had not just staged an exhibition—it had orchestrated a movement. One where art is not separate from luxury, but its most essential, most intoxicating ingredient.
Check out the exhibit on Bergdorf Goodman’s 7th floor before it closes in April!
