For many of us in the design world, the exhibition calendar plays a significant role in the way we plan our work throughout the year. Brussels, Milan, Shanghai, New York, Copenhagen, Paris, Miami, Mexico City – and more cropping up every year. At their best, the international design fairs are something to launch new work around, garner press and sales, socialize with your community and connect with industry professionals. At their worst, they create an endless hamster wheel of not-to-be-missed events, show related fees, travel costs, customs fiascos, all before we mention the consistent output of new work needed to feed the exhibition machine.

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I’m not saying new work = bad, but I am questioning whether I have to make new work on such an abusive timeline. I don’t necessarily believe we need to be pumping out one or two collections a year; we’re not the fashion industry (frankly, the fashion industry shouldn’t be doing it either and can we talk more openly about how luxury brands co-opt these design fairs to do high budget activations that reshape the week’s atmosphere? See @sayhito’s recent post about Milan Design Week). Furniture design is a slow game, it takes months to get an idea into production and many more months to produce, photograph, market and exhibit. I’ve felt a few times now that I've sped up the ideation-completion timeline in order to fit the design week calendar and often end up designing something for the context of a 5’x10’ booth.

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As a designer working in Montreal, NYCx Design is my design week and ICFF is my trade show. I’ve shown in the Wanted section at ICFF three times with both Launchpad and Lookbook and by the third experience I finally felt the show working in my favour. I won an ICFF Editor’s Award, received a stand-out exhibit commendation from Dezeen, and I made enough sales to fully cover my expenses. Overall it felt very much worth it to be there, but that wasn’t always the case. Wanted has been really good to me – they've built a great community and i’m proud to be one of their cohort – but ICFF as a whole is a challenging experience. The Javits and Emerald Exhibitions are massive faceless organizations that make the show difficult and expensive to navigate. Everything costs so much money, from the booth to the union labour to the stand where you get your coffee, you constantly feel like you’re being squeezed. And the whole model relies on you showing multiple times; It's a long game. You need to keep coming back year after year to build familiarity and brand recognition. My first two experiences were socially rewarding and taught me generally about how-to-trade-show, but they were undoubtedly ‘building-block’ years and at around $5k for the booth alone it can be a hard pill to keep swallowing if you don’t see a return. 

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Intentions aside, these large scale trade shows are extractivist. The Wanted section of ICFF is primarily made up of small independent studios whose innovative works bring in a large portion of the audience to the fair at large. But from scale to price, ICFF is built for the Kohlers and the Ligne Rosets of the world and it feels like smaller avant-garde studios are being used to enhance the cultural caché of what would otherwise be a pretty boring trade show.

Last fall as I planned my 2026 calendar I was getting ready to select my booth space at Wanted when I thought, what if I didn’t show this year? What if I hopped off, saved some money and took some time to dig into creating new work on my own schedule. So that's what I did. Almost immediately I felt regretful. I worried that taking a year off would somehow undo all the hard work and money I’d invested in showing over the past three years. That stepping away would make me irrelevant. The decision sent me into a bit of a spiral, but once I overcame my initial anxieties, I felt relieved. I always try to design work from a research perspective and taking some time away from exhibiting has given me the opportunity to explore new directions without the pressure of an upcoming show. I’m reading more, I'm writing again, I'm developing new techniques, all building towards some new pieces that I’m genuinely excited about sharing with the world – once they’re ready.

In reality, I’ll show at Wanted again and I’ll be around at NYCxDesign this May. I’m not advocating for a boycott or anything – I’m just taking this moment to question my own intentions with these shows and find a way to incorporate them into my calendar in a more sustainable way. I do appreciate the many positive aspects surrounding these events, most notably the chance to engage with a community of likeminded people, share opportunities and insights and be reminded that in both success and struggle, you are not alone. It's also still the best way to get eyes on your work. One thing ICFF cannot be faulted for is its ability to draw a crowd. Currently, no other event at NYCxDesign is able to garner as much attention as the trade show and that alone can make it worth it to shell out the extra cash. It’s also just a huge dopamine rush to be there and be putting your work out into the world. It’s a kind of reward for spending months grinding away in the studio, a necessary part of the cycle. All this to say, if you were planning on catching up with me at Look Book, it won’t be this year. I will have a small presence, showing a new collaborative project at Inside~Out: Bird’s Eye View, an outdoor, rooftop exhibition in Dumbo curated by Kin & Company, sponsored by DEDON, May 18th-22nd. More info about that will follow next month. Although I'll be skipping the big show I’d still love to see you while I’m in New York for Design Week, so send me a text or an email and we’ll make time to get coffee or hit up an opening and hope to see you on the rooftop in DUMBO!

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