Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/820206
8 letter editor HUNT SLONEM I haven't been this jazzed about an event since maybe never. Texas Design Week Houston is snowballing. The evening before we shipped this issue to the printer, designer Michael S. Smith confirmed he would be on the schedule. We have designers flying in from L.A., Santa Monica, Atlanta, NYC, North Carolina, and New Orleans in a design Super Bowl, and it's all happening Monday through Friday, May 15 through 19, with a pre-event Sunday, May 14. On the schedule as we go to press: Michael S. Smith, Martyn Lawrence Bullard, Mark D. Sikes, Vicente Wolf, Carl Dellatore, P. Gaye Tapp, Caleb Anderson with Drake/Anderson, Robert Leleux, Madeline Stuart, Danielle Rollins, Florence de Dampierre, Ronda Rice Carman, Dr. Rebecca Peabody (department head of The Getty), and DeeDee Gundberg (Ann Sacks director of product development and design), along with Rizzoli, Viyet's Elizabeth Brown, and more. Alton LaDay, Alton LaDay Media, and I, along with PaperCity, are spearheading this behemoth, with a great team and advice from many who have ridden this horse before us — thank you, Robert Leleux, founder of Southern Style Now Festival. Texas Design Week HQ is at West Avenue in a prime design and art nexus. West Avenue, which recently tweaked the retail proponent of its name from West Ave to West Avenue, is a superb Presenting Sponsor, jumping in with enthusiasm and organizing pop-up shops for the Rizzoli Bookstore, designed by Shane Cook in collaboration with Kartell and other design houses; a space dubbed West Egg, where designers will host trunk shows and in- teresting collections. Houston designer Katie Scott and Vicente Wolf have collaborated on a jewelry collection, Katie Scott x Vicente Wolf, inspired by nature and architecture, which they will show at West Egg. West Avenue's Darin Botelho and Scott Tracy and his team have reworked a street-level space into a dazzling Texas Design Week Event Venue, where the PaperCity Design Awards will be held Monday evening, May 15, followed by days of keynotes, salons, panel discussions, cocktail parties, and trunk shows. (Speaking of which … The PaperCity Design Awards entry period closed at midnight, the night I wrote this letter, with 291 entries!) Many of the keynotes will be held in the West Avenue Venue, with other keynotes taking place offsite but nearby at our partners' showroom and store locations: David Sutherland, Found, Chateau Domingue, Internum, Meredith O'Donnell, and more. For the complete schedule, see pages 49 through 51. Reserve your space and purchase tickets at texasdesignweek.com; questions, events@texasdesignweek.com. Can you see why we're so excited. Next up: Texas Design Week Dallas, early November 2017. Holly Moore Editor-in-Chief holly@papercitymag.com