West Elm partners with celebrity chef Cynthia Rowley to design whimsical watches, more events in NYC

Each week, Alexa is rounding up the buzziest fashion awards, hotel openings, restaurant debuts and popular cultural events in NYC. It’s our curated guide to the best things to see, buy, taste and experience around town.

What’s making our luxury list this week? A buzzy French interior designer opens a gallery in TriBeCa, Wildflower blooms in Chelsea, and one of NYC’s favorite chefs collaborates with West Elm.

Laura Gonzalez is a Paris-based interior designer who, at the moment, may be best known for designing many of Cartier’s flagship boutiques. But she’s also a bit of a nerd with hotel design (most recently Hotel Hana in Paris) and has firmly established herself as a designer to watch. That got a lot easier with the opening of its first space, on Franklin Street in TriBeCa. The floor-to-ceiling display is absolutely gorgeous, filled with pieces from her own furniture and lighting collections, as well as pieces chosen by others. The pièce de résistance is undoubtedly the fireplace customized by the ceramic artist Laurent Dufour, located at the far ends of the space, under a glass window typical for this type of building.

Laura Gonzalez.Fr

The site of the 1969 Stonewall Rebellion (Stonewall Inn) was designated a national monument by President Obama in 2016. The nearby storefront was secured by Pride Live several years ago and, during Pride Weekend, debuted as the first visitor center LGBTQIA+ within the National Park System. And what a debut it was – the opening event featured President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, Elton John, Cynthia Erivo, Katy Perry, Adam Lambert and others. Intended to be an educational resource for LGBTQIA+ history and culture, the 2,100-square-foot space offers tours, programs, a lecture series, and a dedicated theater space. It is free to the public.

StonewallVisitorCenter.org

Marcus Samuelsson has his hands in many proverbial pots, including restaurants, cookbooks and podcasts. But as of this week, the award-winning Swedish-American chef of Ethiopian descent can add furniture and accessory design to that list. His collection for West Elm just launched, with 32 pieces ranging from furniture to lighting, tableware to textiles and even art. Each piece, whether in shape, color or texture, nods to different aspects of Samuelsson’s rich background. They even shot the ad campaign on Smögen, the island in Sweden’s Gothenberg archipelago where he grew up.

WestElm.org

Last year, designer Cynthia Rowley met Coralie Charriol at a party in the Hamptons. It was a fateful moment. Charriol, who is the brand’s CEO and Creative Director, was a fan of Rowley’s designs and thought “it would be fun to put some of her iconic surf prints on the dial of Charriol’s Surf Navigator watch.” So they did. That watch, the Swiss-made Surf Navigator 36mm, is now available for pre-order in a choice of two prints (Shark Deterrent and a summer flower), is water resistant to 300 feet, and retails for $2,450 with 10% of income. being donated to SeaLegacy.

Available starting July 15 at Charriol.org and CynthiaRowley.com.

Ever since Half King closed a few years ago, their former space on 23rd Street (in the shadow of the High Line) has seemed cursed. Then again, Half King is a tough act to follow. For the uninitiated: Half King was co-founded by war journalist Sebastian Junger and, for 18 years, was the go-to place for creative types, especially writers and photographers. Wildflower is the latest to give their old space a go. It’s a highly decorated but approachable interior (by Handwerk Art and Design) that lives up to its name – meaning plenty of florals, in the wallpaper and upholstery fabrics, plus well-chosen lighting fixtures and the overall color palette . We can attest that they make a great cocktail (if you’re into gin and tonics, they have six on offer) but haven’t yet tried the menu, which is very disparate (crowd-pleasing sandwiches, salads, mains). with a few surprises including French Dip Poppers.

WildflowerNYC.com