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Fashion Week Debut for Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams

The designers channeled an image of German model Julia Stegner, set against a Mercedes SLS AMG by fashion photographer Nick Knight.

Nicholas Tamarin -- Interior Design, 2/12/2010 12:00:00 AM

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Star Lounge

High design once again meets high fashion in New York's Bryant Park tents for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week—but for the last time. Providing the design quotient are Mitchell Gold and Bob Williams, the pair behind modish home furnisher Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, who were chosen to create the annual Mercedes-Benz-sponsored Star Lounge.

While it's the last time in the tents before Fashion Week ends its 17-year Bryant Park run and heads to Lincoln Center this fall, the lounge isn't going out with a bang. Instead, it's the quiet roar of a Mercedes SLS AMG, which sparked the Gold/Williams concept for the lounge. They channeled a futuristic image by British fashion shutterbug Nick Knight, which shows German catwalker Julia Stegner in a metallic Gareth Pugh dress, appearing to float against the hood of the new model -- a modernized version of Mercedes-Benz's classic Gullwing.

Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Star Lounge

"We want guests to walk into the lounge and immediately feel as though they are transported into a hip lounge," says Williams. They envisioned a racy palette, borrowing silver, gunmetal, white and red from the SLS AMG, and expressed it in a wide array of furnishings. A white Lucite table, illuminated in red, serves as the check-in desk, accompanied by white-leather bar stools. A white vinyl tufted bar with contrasting silver buttons sits beneath a blowup of Knight's defining image.

Two seating areas feature loveseats from Dr. Pitt, a signature Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams series, slipcovered in white faux suede. The company's new faux vinyl is featured in gunmetal tones on cube ottomans, and also on the sloping silhouettes of four Alice chairs. Red cut chenille graces the Austin ottoman, and reappears on the round Jeannie chair. Three Corona pendants create, appropriately enough, a runway to the bar.

Open throughout fashion week, which runs February 11-18, the Star Lounge is reserved for designers, celebrities, VIPs, the media and invited guests. But Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams welcomes everyone at its web site and stores.

Images copyright Mercedes Benz Fashion Week; courtesy of Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams.