In January, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, N.Y.C.E.D.C., announced it would turn over operations of New York’s design week organization, NYCxDesign, to Sandow in 2020 through a multiyear, renewable contract. Sandow, a media company and consultancy, owns the design magazines Interior Design, Luxe Interiors + Design, and Galerie, and the materials research library, Material Connexion, prompting questions from some in the design industry about favoritism and privatization of the previously city-run event.
In 2013, the city and an informal group of designers, educators, museum representatives, showroom and brand representatives and others jointly introduced NYCxDesign to raise the profile of New York’s design week and encourage collaboration among different groups and across design disciplines.
The group eventually became NYCxDesign’s steering committee. NYCxDesign runs from early to mid-May, and functions as an umbrella organization and information clearinghouse for hundreds of design-related events that run in tandem with several independently operated design trade fairs. According to the economic development corporation, the event drew more than 336,000 people in 2018.
“It needed to move outside of city operations to grow and build new audiences,” said Alex Costas, the senior vice president of marketing for N.Y.C.E.D.C. “Sandow has a large global audience, a proven track record with producing events and relationships with leading design firms around the world,” he added.
No money was exchanged as part of the agreement, a representative of the economic development corporation said. Edward Hogikyan, the day-to-day operator of NYCxDesign, will leave the E.D.C. to work for Sandow.
“Many of us had questions. Why Sandow? What are they going to do to make NYCxDesign more relevant, to bring it to the next level?” said Odile Hainaut, a member of the steering committee. Ms. Hainaut, a founder, with Claire Pijoulat, of the Brooklyn- and Manhattan-based trade fair Wanted Design, said she is hopeful that the company can invest more resources in New York’s design week.
“We have been reassured,” she said. “They are based here. They have a lot of assets, so we will see how it goes.”
Still, the stakes are high for smaller-scale brands and fairs like Wanted Design. “Ninety-five percent of our business comes through NYCxDesign,” Ms. Pijoulat said.
Adam Sandow, the founder of Sandow, said the design week organization will maintain its independence. “NYCxDesign will be a stand-alone brand under the Sandow umbrella,” he said. “We want to maintain and expand the media partnerships.” He added that the company will be working with the steering committee to make NYCxDesign more inclusive and to push out into the boroughs.
According to Sandow, plans for NYCxDesign 2020 are in the early stages. “Our goal is to expand this programming beyond the festival in May in New York and to reinforce the NYCxDesign brand throughout the year,” domestically and globally.
