A former movie theatre on the Upper East Side becomes a setting for contemporary design. COLLECTIBLE´s third New York edition brings experimental practices into conversation with corporate fantasies and the spatial world of fashion.
A cinema is built to direct our attention. Tall spaces, large images, a world to enter for a while. For its third New York edition, the design fair COLLECTIBLE has chosen just such a place: a former movie theatre on East 86th Street. From November 6 to 8, 2026, galleries and independent design studios will present their work there. The dates and the VIP preview on November 5 are confirmed on the official website.
The move takes the fair to the Upper East Side, close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and Cooper Hewitt. Contemporary design will enter a neighbourhood whose museums, galleries and collections have helped shape how art is viewed and understood for decades. The former cinema offers a distinctive setting: expansive volumes and soaring ceilings with room for ambitious spatial ideas.
Objects with Stories of Their Own
Founded in Brussels in 2018 by Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg, COLLECTIBLE focuses on 21st-century design. At its centre are works that bring together craft knowledge, material experimentation and an individual design language.
The term collectible design also describes a particular way of looking at things. Alongside function, attention turns to how an object was made, its material qualities and the thinking behind it. An object can furnish a room while raising a question: How do we want to live? Which forms feel familiar to us? And why?
The fair approaches these questions from several directions. In the Main Section, galleries present their perspectives on contemporary design. The Bespoke Section connects independent studios with people interested in commissioning individual works, including collectors, architects and interior designers. Here, design becomes a visible exchange between an idea, a particular space and the people who use it.
The Curious Appeal of the Office
One particularly intriguing perspective comes from “Human Resources”, Alex Tieghi-Walker’s exhibition within the Curated Section. The founder of TIWA Select explores the fascination with office spaces in the late 20th century.
The office emerges as a setting for ambition, labour and display. Its furnishings reveal how companies see themselves – and how people within those structures wish to be seen. Tieghi-Walker draws on this world, transforming it into a landscape of corporate fantasies.
There is an appealing shift in attention here. An environment often taken for granted in everyday life becomes a subject of scrutiny. What do workplaces reveal about status? How is success expressed through space? What value do we assign to the things that surround us while we work?
“Human Resources” carries these questions into collectible design. The office’s apparent sobriety makes it a particularly fertile starting point.
Fashion Needs Spaces
The Fashion Section turns towards another world of staging and presentation. Its 2026 curator is Lynette Nylander, Executive Digital Director of Harper’s Bazaar, a writer and creative director whose previous editorial roles include Dazed, i-D and Teen Vogue.
Her focus is on furniture, scenography and spatial concepts developed for retail environments and runway presentations. A fashion brand’s design language extends beyond clothing: into how a shop is furnished, how a collection is presented and how people move through those spaces.
COLLECTIBLE will create opportunities for encounters and bespoke commissions between designers and fashion creatives. The Fashion Section brings attention to an area we often register only in passing, even though it plays a substantial part in how fashion is experienced.
The programme also includes New Garde, a section for non-profit organisations and collectives working through unconventional formats, from storefronts to digital platforms. Panels and conversations, along with the professional initiative Club COLLECTIBLE, will create further connections between makers, architecture and interior design.
The former cinema feels fitting for this edition. Where films once opened a view onto other worlds, objects and spaces will now take on that role. An office landscape, a piece of furniture for a fashion presentation, an individual commission: things that reveal how much of our lives is embedded in design.
COLLECTIBLE New York
November 6–8, 2026 · 210 East 86th Street, New York
VIP preview and opening: November 5
Further information: collectible.design
