Although NEOCon is ostensibly about contract furnishings, Merchandise Mart Properties has over the years tried to glam it up and attract more of a residential component. This year, attendees were offered a keynote address from Margaret Russell, who recently became editor-in-chief of Architectural Digest after two decades at Elle Decor. Turnout was huge; pre-registration demand was such that the event had to be relocated from a Mart meeting space to a ballroom at the adjacent hotel.
Russell became familiar to viewers as a judge on the competition tv show Top Design, where she came off as the Simon Cowell figure. In Reality TV, they say it is all in the editing, but I wonder whether the editors at Bravo really wanted to make her look like a haughty, disapproving ice queen, because that’s what they did. [Did the camera ever capture her smiling? Does Andy Cohen have a personal issue with her?] So I was surprised to find that, as a presenter, she is funny, charming and gracious, sharing her [almost] breathless wonderment at assuming the helm of what she un-apologetically referred to as “the most powerful design brand in the world.”
She promises all sorts of improvements at the magazine, from a shift in tone to a broadening of its online presence. Central to her approach is a change in how the photos are made. As anyone who has worked in magazines can tell you, photos are the drivers of all magazine content; this is only amplified in the shelter category. Russell enthusiastically endorses digital techniques that, with substantial manipulation, she says yield images that are actually look more real than anything possible with conventional film.
Later on, I chatted with the editor-in-chief of An Important Design Magazine [not AD] in the Mart’s 7th floor press room [which, for the first time in memory, wasn’t sponsored by a particular vendor] and asked for her general impressions of the show. She told me she couldn’t quite articulate what she was thinking, but she seemed frustrated that there weren’t any important design innovations to be found at the show. “But this show has always been more about marketing than design,” she told me.
“Duh,” I responded.
Which is not to say there isn’t a lot of fine design to take in.
Most of what I seem to find appealing at NEOCon each year are furnishings that either blur the cateogories of art and design, or work equally well in contract or residential settings. Austin-based Mary Helen Pratte’s work for the Ekitta line does a little of each, showing off her training both in design and sculpture. Her new Para light fixture incorporates the latest LED technology, but also features an elegantly sculptural molded plywood canopy that had to be fabricated in Germany [the rest of her line is manufactured in Texas]; like most of her work, it would translate extremely well to a minimalist residential interior.
As would her selection of leather-detailed hardware and fittings.
Pratte also designed the storage system in Ekitta’s 3rd floor showroom, although not for production. She’s an extremely accomplished designer.
I had never seen Carlo Bartoli’s Polo chair and table, manufactured in Italy by Segis, but I like their sense of whimsy 
And while I am apparently two or three years behind the curve on this, I don’t think I’d ever been in Bernhardt’s showroom since it was remodeled by Lauren Bottet; for NEOCon, it’s highlighting work designed by students at LA’s Art Center College of Design.
The whole place is literally dazzling.
Deirdre Jordan, who distributes her sleek and handsome Troscan furniture line at Holly Hunt, showed me her new Kinship table, a particularly appealing variation on the long farm table, which features a metal groove in the center that will accommodate — among other items — these candle sticks.
One of the most interesting — and peculiarly functional at the present moment — pieces I saw was actually in the press room. This club chair with wood tablet, from the Ciji line made by Gunlocke, seems especially relevant now, with the increased popularity of tablet devices — which fit perfectly on the wooden attachments.
One of the factors that surprises me about the contract industry is how much of the manufacturing still seems to be located in the USA. And discounting the abundance of Asian office chair manufacturers on the show floor, I found an encouraging number of small, mom-and-pop style manufacturing concerns with impressive product lines.
I’ve been aware of 3 Form’s business in decorative panels and architectural elements. But I wasn’t familiar with its “Light Art” division, based in Seattle. Creative Director Ryan Smith, a USC-trained architect, left the field to spend 5 years working in the studio of glass sculptor Dale Chihuly, an influence that’s readily apparent in the booth installation [which looks custom, but is actually just composed of “Blossom” pendants from the production line.]
TMC Furniture — based in Ann Arbor, with its manufacturing facility in Grand Rapids — is literally a mom-and-pop operation that makes wood seating and casegoods, but at NEOCon spotlighted its sophisticated die-cut capabilities for wall, ceiling and end panels.
Sparkeology, a self-described “delightful new furniture company,” also manufactures in the Grand Rapids-area. It’s a joint venture of the Worden company and a number of western Michigan designers which seems to be aiming for an quirky take on institutional furnishings. Its ice-cream parlor meets classroom display won the Large Booth award at the show. 
Of course NEOCon ultimately is all about business. In a continuing attempt to identify some relationship between the contract furnishings industry and general economic trends, I’ve discovered there are no simple answers.
But here are a few final thoughts [which is not to say conclusions}:
Increased sales of contract furnishings don’t necessarily reflect higher office occupancies or more office jobs. At the same time, increasing numbers of entrepreneurial startups seem interested in high-end design solutions at their new office spaces.
The reported increase in industry-wide sales is much more about the educational and health care sectors than it is about offices, retail or hospitality, which in some respects may reinforce depressing messages about our society: we’re living longer and needing more healthcare related services; plus many of our aging workers are returning to school to re-invent themselves after they’ve lost their jobs.
The complicated sales and distribution network in the contract industry makes it difficult to determine whether sales figures even mean anything about the vitality of the industry itself, to say nothing of its acting as a bellwether for the economy at large.
