A happy highlight of this year’s La Cienega Design Quarter (LCDQ) three-day design festival showed its face to the public on a busy, design-rich Los Angeles boulevard. Two chic and fascinating windows, designed by Gary Hutton and Chad Dorsey, lent special life at Mehraban, a three-generation purveyor of contemporary and artisinal rugs.
Mehraban hosted the two transformative window displays as part of the 11-year-running festival’s chosen theme, “Legendary: Icons of Design,” focused on living and past stars of the design world. Both of the selected designers were European, Vernor Panton, a Dane, and Eileen Gray, from Ireland.
A new event was part of the proceedings, the first-ever LCDQ/UCLA Student Design Competition award breakfast on May 8, which held special meaning for the Mehraban hosts, who offered, “We wish to show our commitment to fostering new sources of inspiration and innovation within the design community.”
Gary Hutton chose to venerate Verner Panton. Said Hutton, “Verner Panton is kind of my spirit animal. One of my first design jobs was managing a textile showroom that sold Panton’s rugs and fabrics, so I was immersed in his world early on. Panton was Danish, so he was rooted in cool classicism, but knew how to drop those expectations with pleasing results. In my way, I do that too. Also, Panton was a utopian. He experimented with new materials, a simple geometric language and radical lifestyles as the path to a brave new world. I think we could all use a little utopian thinking in the current dystopia.”
Chad chose Eileen Gray as his iconic design inspiration for her love and understanding of architectural spaces, international style, and well-designed furniture that is both functional, yet elegant. Her inspiration from objects and shapes, combined with elegant simplicity and restraint, resonated with Chad’s own design sensibilities. Gray’s forward-thinking design of a seaside vacation home in Roquebrune, France, was the source of inspiration, melded with Mehraban textiles.
photo credit: aristotle chavez