10 Collectible Design Shows to See in October

October embodies transformation and a changing of the seasons, especially as sunsets arrive earlier, temperatures fall, and color drains from foliage. These slow shifts mirror how designers move ideas from concepts into tangible, fully realized objects, whether through surface treatments, aging materials, and processes that honor time and the maker’s hand. Each of the below exhibitions speak to these subtle movements, whether in the mirrored silhouettes on view at Emma Scully Gallery to Roxane Lahidji’s use of crystallized sea salt to fashion statement luminaires and furniture. 

1. “Framed: An Unjustifiable Collection of Shattered Self-Reflection” at Emma Scully Gallery | New York 

Mirrors need not be perceived merely as a reflective object, but a symbol of absence, identity, and authorship. That notion underpins the Upper East Side gallery’s latest group exhibition, in which Dana Arbib, Simone Bodmer-Turner, Rafael Prieto, Paul Cocksedge, and Marcel Wanders lend their artistic stamp to the oft-overlooked mirror frame. Gallery founder Emma Scully and co-curator Erica Boginsky of Friedman Benda encouraged each designer to explore frames as the artwork itself: design that encloses nothing, ornament that surrounds emptiness, and structure that questions identity. Arbib conceived a Murano glass stunner envisioned as an homage to Venetian architecture, its pale green evoking the canals; Wanders fashioned an egg-shaped mirror whose colorful shards mimic a diamond mid-shatter. 

Until December 13 

2. “Convergent Lines” at L’Appartement Gallery | Geneva 

Material and movement guide the latest exhibition at L’Appartement Gallery, where painting, sculpture, and functional objects unfold across three distinct rooms. Mariana Oushiro’s expressive canvases, marked by architectural lines and handworked color fields, act as connective tissue between sculptural works by Maarten Vrolijk, Jojo Corväiá, and Marius Ritiu. The latter anchors the first space with monumental metal forms and furniture that assert physical mass. In the second room, Corväiá’s hand-molded ceramics appear like excavated relics, their surfaces bearing the maker’s imprint. Vrolijk’s vessels and lamps in the final gallery blur utility and sculpture, inviting close perusal through fragile contours and luminous finishes. 

Until December 19 

3. “United State” at Southern Guild | Los Angeles 

The South African gallery’s Los Angeles outpost gathers more than 25 luminaries from Africa and the United States for an evocative cross-continental exchange. Sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, and functional objects appear in lively conversation, from Zanele Muholi’s portraits centering Black queer identity to Andile Dyalvane’s large-scale ceramics that channel Xhosa cosmology and ancestral grounding. Bonolo Kavula’s meticulous shweshwe fabric constructions echo generational labor; Simphiwe Ndzube’s surreal figures inhabit his imagined “Mine-moon” terrain. There’s even a new site-specific mural by local artist Tofer Chin, whose “abstracted landscapes” toy with perception along one of the gallery’s exterior walls.  

Until November 1 

4. “Pierre Bonnefille: Rhizome” at Les Ateliers Courbet | New York 

Mineral powders, carbon, and earth-born pigments accumulate across Pierre Bonnefille’s latest array of sculptures, each meticulously shaped through over 30 successive applications. Each draws on ancient Eastern practices that treated mineral surfaces as conduits for contemplation; Bonnefille continues that lineage from his studio in the South of France. Surfaces appear monochrome at first glance, but closer inspection reveals copper glints, earthen shifts, and textures pressed into being through slow burnishing. The French designer’s first U.S. solo show puts his study of Ikebana philosophies and historical patination on vivid display—and reveals how he translates the markings of geological time into one-of-a-kind objects that carry both human intervention and the raw character of their materials.  

Until November 8 

5. “A Shared Scaffolding: Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery x Bruises” at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery | New York 

Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery is fully delivering on its promise to broach topics and dialogues the design world rarely treads. Its latest exhibition, hosted in collaboration with Montreal gallery Bruises, draws inspiration from the architectural attributes of early 20th-century circus tents to plumb the overlooked yet essential structural intricacies that give shape to a complete, singular form. Bruises will debut dream-like, anthropomorphic ceramics by Sylvie Cauchon and metalwork furniture by gallery creative director Florence Provencher-Proulx, joining furniture and objects spanning a breadth of historical time periods. Unexpected dialogues ensue, from an Arts and Crafts bench’s neo-gothic ornamentation conversing with a medieval-inspired chain link structure fashioned by London studio LS Gomma to a Neoclassical-style mirror showcasing a different approach to delicate metalwork from Provencher-Proux’s theatrical furniture.  

Until November 1 

6. “Roxane Lahidji: Ethereal Blend” at Augusta Gallery | Brussels 

Roxane Lahidji creates one-of-a-kind furniture and objects in an innovative material she developed from sea salt in pursuit of environmentally friendly production processes. In her first solo exhibition, the French-born designer showcases recent creations such as Shirokuro, a salt-and-wood low table resembling a snow-covered tree stump. It joins an impressive series of salt wall pieces reminiscent of the seabed as well as cocktail tables and spherical lamps that have shaped the identity of her Belgium-based studio, Marbled Salts, while showcasing how her experimental pieces continue to evolve their form, size, and color in intriguing new ways.   

Until November 29 

7. “Metallica” at Galerie56 | New York 

As the name suggests, Lee F. Mindel’s adventurous Tribeca gallery is delving deep into the intricacies of a single material: metal. The show examines the ingenious ways designers have utilized the versatile material across the 20th century and beyond, from the angular rigidity of Jean Prouvé’s sculptural S.A.M. Tropique Table’s bent steel legs to the fluid elegance of Maria Pergay’s brushed steel Wave Desk. A stainless steel sculpture by Margaret Evangleine, on the other hand, mirrors the form of Anish Kapoor’s reflective sculpture outside, capturing the speed of a bullet and the permanence of its aftermath. Though the diverse array of pieces on view depict different attitudes and ideas, they all represent hallmarks of metal’s expressive potential.   

Until October 22 

8. “Dark Times, Bright Signs” at Delvis (Un)Limited | Milan 

When it feels like the Dark Ages is nigh, upstart Milanese gallery Delvis (Un)Limited is choosing hope, light, and a healthy dose of pragmatism. In its latest exhibition, an extraordinary series of creations crafted by vanguard designers seeks to places humans in sharp confrontation with the planet and its raw matter: chairs dressed in leather and trapped in suffocating corsets, furniture made of iron mesh that recalls 12th-century armory, vases sheathed metallic busts, luminaires that resemble daggers, and vases sheathed in lunar surfaces and synthetic plastics. Each object intends to exorcise and work through its inner experience in pursuit of a brighter future.   

Through February 2026 

9. “Paul Cocksedge: Critical Mass” at Objects With Narratives | Brussels 

Plate steel and marble—some of the heaviest and rawest materials available—have lately caught the fascination of Paul Cocksedge, who explores what happens when they’re pushed into forms that reflect tension and intimacy. To fabricate his Critical Mass Table, for example, the London designer cuts into a thin Cor-Ten steel plate strip by strip before welding the slivers back to the edge, lifting the original sheet to table height. They dramatically contrast works fashioned from quarried and cut blocks of marble that nestle, lean, and gently compress one another. Though wildly different in scope, each body of work emerges from similar pressure points.  

Until November 8 

10.“Thierry Lemaire” at The Future Perfect | Los Angeles 

Thierry Lemaire’s sculptural pieces have a few signatures: the powerful presence of marble, the dazzling gleam of polished brass. The French architect’s latest array of artisan-crafted pieces, developed specifically for The Future Perfect’s historic Goldwyn House, draws inspiration from a recent trip to Mexico, where the modernist architecture of Luis Barragán and geometric rigor of the Church of the Resurrection in Cuajimalpa inspired a sculptural suite of onyx works that also nod to Brutalism. The Omnia sofa and lounge chair’s clean, soft lines evoke the stone’s mineral essence; other works, crafted in burnt steel, seem to suggest a controlled accident.   

Until November 2