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PLAYTIME NEW YORK: When Happiness is the Theme Spring/Summer 2012 Collections 2012 (July 30-August 1, 2011)
If one can roll time back to the late 1970s through the 1980s, you'll remember SoHo not as the high-priced shopping mall it is now, but as a thriving community of artists and designers living and exhibiting their work in lofts and galleries. True to those earlier decades, the founders of Playtime New York did more than promote children's collections: they used the loft for a pop-up store as well as "Trend Spaces," site-specific installations designed especially for Playtime that allowed artists to interpret the season's colors and themes.
"Happiness," the theme of the exhibitions.
Toffee Apples, by Florine Demosthene
"In order to contemplate Happiness, Demosthene has made candy pieces!" Turning the warm tones of hot pink and orange into a "veritable miscellany of sweets: Tagada strawberries, toffee apples, bulls eyes…"
Garden of Eden, by Jasmine Murrell
Using rich, leaf green and indigo as a canopy of "leaves", Murrell "contemplates the world of Happiness with an installation of a young girl sprouting from a tree."
Partiers nibble hors d'oeuvres and sip cocktails beneath Karen Hsu's garden of paper flowers.
Hanging above shoppers' heads in the pop-up shop "Playtime Loves Japan," is Japanese artist Schoko's "Origamic Sculptures" titled "Garden of Wonders." The installation features "a family of fish swimming among multicolored bubbles from the River of Hope and Prosperity, as in Koinobori, the celebration of Children's Day." All the money raised from the sale of clothing was donated to K.I.D.S., a global charity committed to improving the lives of needy children and their families.
Originally published September 2, 2011
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