This year's Designer Spaces & Mar­ket Places event fea­tured a theme — Inspi­ra­tions from Around the World. Given the royal wed­ding this year and the peren­nial inter­est in all British icons on this side of the pond, I chose British Inva­sion Redux as my theme. British Inva­sion to me is clas­sic 1960's, so nat­u­rally my thoughts went to the incom­pa­ra­ble col­lec­tion of mid-mod at Irwin Feld Design in Stam­ford. The lovely Marcy Feld was imme­di­ately on board. Thanks Marcy!

Rather than cre­ate a com­pletely period room, I wanted to show how mid-mod can mix com­fort­ably with other fur­nish­ings. A new sofa with clean lines and antique chair with over-the-top carv­ings pro­vide an inter­est­ing coun­ter­point to the 1960's pieces: the side­board, cock­tail table, nest­ing tables and orange chair. I think the design works well for mod­ern life, as proven by the num­ber of design­ers and vis­i­tors who were loung­ing in the space at any given time dur­ing the show! A lit­tle tongue-in-cheek nod to the theme, and a lot of fun — it was def­i­nitely a happy chic space!

Spaces & Places 2011 from Cyn­thia Mason Inte­ri­ors photo credit: Michael Partenio

My write-up for the pro­gram: "As with the British Inva­sion of the 1960’s, today’s design redux melds a cre­ative blend of ele­ments with a British inflec­tion. To a mod­ern melody, mid-century pieces – sub­lime side­board, club chair, cock­tail table – dance effort­lessly with a new sofa and an antique chair rein­vented. Strong lines and bold col­ors chan­nel the 60’s with­out the flower-power excess. With a dash of Rule Brit­ta­nia, this British Inva­sion cre­ates intense emo­tional appeal in a time­less design medley."

Some (non-professional) pictures:

Some­times, you just need an out­fit to match your space…

rearranged to shed more light for the cock­tail party

michael parte­nio gear­ing up for a shot

FAB side­board and chair from Irwin Feld Design

dune and duchess can­de­labra is HOT!

work­ing a show house can be exhausting…

work­ing while work­ing, if you know what I mean…

Many thanks to: Irwin Feld Design for the gor­geous mid-century pieces,  Design­SourceCT for the sofa, J.Namnoun for the rugs, Dunes and Duchess for the can­de­labra and Sabino Fal­conieri for the chair lac­quer (a sub­ject for a future post).

A heart­felt thank you to my fel­low design­ers and the event orga­niz­ers for fos­ter­ing such a fun event to ben­e­fit two worth­while non-profits: Rebuild­ing Together Hart­ford and the Hart­ford Preser­va­tion Alliance. And thanks too for all the sup­port­ers who attended the show — your par­tic­i­pa­tion meant a lot to all of us!!