Elegant Ashtrays, Updated USM Chairs, and New Piercings at the "Shelter" Design Fair

This story is part of Fair Take, our reporting on global design events that looks up close at the newest ideas in fixtures, furnishings, and more.

A refreshing new design fair opened in New York City last weekend during the NYCxDesign festival and alongside the long-running International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Titled Shelter, it’s a return to a physical show for the organizers who ran the home accessories expo Shoppe Object before starting online retailer Afternoon Light. Among its 89 exhibitors, the fair featured emerging brands working at scales and budgets from collectible furniture to cash-and-carry tabletop objects. It also included a few stalwart brands doing something surprising and a section from the producers of Jonald Dudd, an annual presentation of irreverent and pleasingly weird furniture and lighting.

I went to check it out with photographer Rebecca Smeyne and to select a few favorite objects in the show. Here are a few things we liked.

My vote for best in show was Likeminded Objects, the studio run by Elise McMahon in Hudson, New York. I’m a fan of her fabric patchworks, wire armatures, and other bright collages of rough-and-ready materials.

A pair of stoneware sconces by Ember Studio anchored one wall at Colony, the New York gallery/co-op run by Jean Lin.