Collectible Returns to New York With a Visionary Take on Contemporary Design 

When Collectible debuted in New York last year, the fair filled a conspicuous void in the city’s design landscape. At a time when design fairs were struggling to find their footing after pandemic closures, its arrival was met with enthusiasm by a creative community eager for a physical event devoted solely to 21st-century collectible design. Now, during Armory Arts Week, the fair returns for its second New York edition with a bolder, more expansive vision. “Last year showed us there’s a real appetite in New York for boundary-pushing design,” says Clélie Debehault, who co-founded Collectible with Liv Vaisberg in Brussels to showcase vanguard European design talents. “This year’s edition builds upon the momentum in a stunning new venue that matches the ambition of the work on show.” 

The fair returns to the WSA Building, but this time on the 39th floor, where panoramic, almost vertigo-inducing views of the Lower Manhattan skyline provide a momentous backdrop for what promises to be the fair’s most ambitious Stateside presentation to date. “It’s a stunning location, and I hope New Yorkers will be amazed by the setting,” Vaisberg tells Galerie. “This year is quite experimental—we want people to hang out, stay, and engage deeply.” And with more than 120 exhibitors hailing from 22 countries across six sharply distinct curatorial sections, losing oneself in the sprawling constellation of objects is all but inevitable.  

The most compelling draw is the sheer concentration of material exploration and expressive intent. The fair’s structure may be defined by sections, but the real momentum arises from how individual presentations illuminate singular artistic visions—and how designers are tapping into ever-inventive ways to push materials to extremes.  

Nowhere is that clearer than in a standout booth by Belgium’s Uppercut Gallery, which pairs two talents with divergent takes on Brutalism: South Korean designer Yoon Shun, whose alluring pieces pair oak wood and aluminum; and Dutch artist Linde Freya Tangelder, known for her contemplative practice under the name Destroyers/Builders, whose brushed aluminum furnishings are invested with simplicity and rawness. Elsewhere, Kamilla Csegzi’s mycelium-cast sculptures, grown inside molds shaped by bubble wrap, bring an uncanny softness to structure. Rosie Li’s brilliant Jewel Blocks, a series of Art Deco–inspired luminaires five years in the making, channels the optical precision of early 20th-century Fresnel lenses into prismatic, interlocking modules of pressed opal glass and cast brass, yielding crystalline geometries that refract light through stepped forms shaped like mini-ziggurats. Colombian designer Marcela Cure, meanwhile, offers hand-pigmented resin vessels that appear excavated from the earth. 

Given the fair’s origins in Belgium, transatlantic energy pulses throughout. The arrival of Mexico City’s upstart Toro Manifesto, presenting new work by Greek designer Kiki Goti and Mexican studio Ehecatl, marks a full-circle moment: “[Regina Merino, Horacio Verastegui, and Arturo Verastegui, the founders of Toro Manifesto], told me they came to Collectible Brussels two years ago, and loved it,” Vaisberg recalls. “They got inspired, and it encouraged them to open a gallery in Mexico.” Their booth channels the enthusiasm of that origin story, delivering theatrical flair through Ehecatl’s ornamental luminaires grounded in Mesoamerican symbolism but rendered in a futuristic palette. Goti’s new Bells & Whistles collection anchors the vignette with aluminum bells that double as furniture legs while whistle-shaped knobs reveal hidden drawers discreetly nestled within lacquered cabinetry. 

These moments of spectacle and surprise extend beyond traditional booths. Studio S II and Bond Hardware are presenting one of the fair’s most unexpected interventions: a piercing parlor enveloped in an ambient soundscape composed by musician Kidä. Nearby, a group installation curated by artist Allan Wexler and Office of Tangible Space co-founder Michael Yarinsky reimagines the domestic table as a site for speculative dining rituals, gathering more than 20 artists to contribute singular vessels and objects to a surreal, collectively designed tablescape. In one corner, a hidden listening room that speaker purveyor Silence Please fashioned from an unassigned booth offers a clandestine retreat for those adventurous enough to venture inside.  

This year’s Curated section, a barometer of Collectible’s conceptual daring, takes its cue from architectural follies—structures intended as decoration, but whose extravagant appearance suggests ulterior purpose. Organized by design writer Hannah Martin and presented in a scenography by Bi-Rite founder Cat Snodgrass, the show invited independent studios to revel in the impractical. “This line of thinking feels deeply connected to our contemporary times, where reality can seem completely illegible,” Martin explains. The results, naturally, are strange, seductive, and oddly disarming. Joseph Algieri fashioned a miniature structure modeled after an Italian Rationalist hallmark that hides a jewelry box within; a salvaged Douglas fir chair by Sam Klemick is draped in an illusory ribbon carved from the same timber.  

Strategically positioned during Armory Arts Week, Collectible is providing a galvanizing anchor for 21st-century design within New York’s burgeoning fall cultural calendar. (Take the wealth of collectible design exhibitions opening around the city this month as proof.) “Last year, we noticed people flying in from Chicago because there wasn’t anything like [the fair],” Vaisberg recalls. While the Armory Show’s newly debuted Function section indeed touches on furniture, it leans more toward how artists engage with the tenets of design.  

Collectible instead carves out space for a broader, more international ecosystem of designers, dealers, and curators that deliberately eschews bold-faced brands and vintage. “It’s a small market that we’re playing with, but that’s the reason why we created Collectible, to support that very precise market,” Vaisberg explains. “It’s important to nurture, support, and find new designers and galleries to keep things lively and support everybody in the ecosystem.” To wit: even actor and comedian Julio Torres is teasing pieces from his collaboration with Brooklyn furniture brand Sabai, imbuing works inspired by New York living with whimsical surrealism. 

At two years old, the fair’s ballooning presence within New York’s tight-knit design community speaks to its influence—and how Debehault and Vaisberg have captured lightning in a bottle. “Designers meet at Collectible and collaborate later. Visitors discover something unexpected. We keep it organic, but we want to support this community and create opportunity,” Vaisberg says. “Last year, people told us, ‘New York needed this.’ So we’re going to keep building.”   

Collectible is on view at the WSA Building (180 Maiden Lane, New York) until September 7.