The Future Is Collectible: Why New York’s Design Fair Matters Now

Design doesn’t have to be fleeting. This September, COLLECTIBLE New York proves it. Returning to the newly restored WSA building on Maiden Lane, the fair gathers 123 exhibitors from 22 countries, weaving together experimental furniture, visionary objects, and scenography with a fashion-forward edge.

But COLLECTIBLE isn’t your typical design fair. Founded by Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, it’s the only international stage dedicated exclusively to 21st-century design — a temple of the new, the daring, and the collectible. Think less trade-show fatigue, more curated immersion: a place where material meets memory, and where beauty isn’t a luxury but a necessity.

A global lens, a sensual edge

This year’s edition stretches across six curatorial sections. Belgium’s Uppercut gallery pairs South Korea’s Yoon Shun with designer Linde Freya Tangelder, weaving two distinct aesthetics into a shared landscape of tension and harmony. Mexico City’s Toro Manifesto brings sacred Mesoamerican flowers into luminous new altars, while Philadelphia’s radical collective DUDD HAUS channels playful rebellion into sculptural form. From Murano glass reimagined to rugs inspired by oxidation, the fair is less about furniture and more about encounters — between heritage and futurism, whimsy and rigor, the intimate and the monumental.

When design flirts with fashion

One of COLLECTIBLE’s signatures is the FASHION section, where spatial design collides with couture thinking. Exhibitors reimagine the runway and retail environment as sensual architecture, with scenography by Heim+Viladrich blurring the line between function and fiction. The message is clear: in 2025, design doesn’t just furnish our lives — it stages them.

Whimsy, ritual, and radical intimacy

This year’s CURATED section, aptly titled In Praise of Folly, embraces the beautifully impractical. Sculptural follies and dreamlike installations invite visitors to wander through fantasy and desire. Meanwhile, special projects like Table Top — a futurist take on dining rituals curated by Michael Yarinsky and Allan Wexler — prove that even the most mundane act (eating) can become art. And in a more sensual twist, Studio S II and Bond Hardware are unveiling a piercing-and-sound immersive booth that fuses jewelry, sonic vibration, and radical intimacy. This isn’t design you simply look at — it’s design that touches you back.

Why it matters

Beyond the spectacle, COLLECTIBLE speaks to a deeper shift. In an era of mass production and digital distraction, the fair is a reminder that objects can hold meaning, tell stories, and even become heirlooms. It’s about creating a culture of intentional living — one where what we choose to surround ourselves with reflects not just taste, but values.

For the modern cosmopolitan man (or woman) who cares about beauty with substance, COLLECTIBLE offers more than objects: it offers a way of seeing. This September, New York becomes the capital of collectible design. And in a city that thrives on reinvention, that feels exactly right.

COLLECTIBLE New York 2025
4 – 7 septembre 2025
WSA Building, 180 Maiden Lane, Manhattan
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