Party for Travel + Leisure Design Awards issue - San Francisco Chronicle
Nancy Novogrod, Travel + Leisure's editor in chief, has the enviable job of making sure her readers are hip to the world's most interesting hotels, spas and restaurants. No matter the price of a hotel room or a watch, beauty + function is the ideal combination she's always looking for.
For the magazine's sixth annual Design Awards 2010 issue celebration, she brought the party to the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. On a recent evening with fun cocktails (Roederer Estate Brut and fresh tangerine juice), and nibbles by chef Loretta Keller of Moss Room, about 150 guests mingled with some of this year's winners. But none of the honorees were from the Bay Area, so why hold the party here?
"We've never held them here before, so it was time, and San Francisco is a very design-conscious, forward-thinking city," Novogrod said, looking quite chic in a leopard-print coat. "And this building is a great example of that."
The 2010 winners were chosen by a panel that included renowned designer and retailer Terence Conran, fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi, White House interior designer Michael Smith and the Fashion Institute of Technology's director and chief curator Valerie Steele, among others. The honorees spanned a wide range of products and services, from the newly redesigned rooms at the nationwide Motel 6 chain, to the upscale La Mamounia resort in Marrakesh, Morocco, to Nomiya restaurant in Paris, to colorful plastic watches by Nixon Time Tellers, and fashion designer Derek Lam's new New York boutique. (A complete list of this year's 16 winners is at travelandleisure.com).
While none of the judges attended and only one winning product was on display (the new Ford Fusion Hybrid), several of the designers were at the party, including accessories designers Lucy Wallace Eustice and Monica Zwirner of MZ Wallace, whose lightweight nylon multi-pocket pleated Kate travel bag won the award for best travel accessory.
"Six large outside pockets and eight inside," said Zwirner. The bag, which retails for about $300, is available locally at Two Skirts and the Nob Hill Spa.
The night's bigger winner, the Design Champion, was Adrian Zecha, founder and chairman of Amanresorts, who oversees luxury resorts all over the world, including places in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Turks and Caicos, Thailand, China and Utah, among others.
"He has brought a new style of luxury travel to his guests," said Novogrod. "He believes that authenticity is more important than excess."
Social maven Maria Manetti Farrow, who came to the party just to see Zecha, is a huge fan of the resorts.
"They are elegant and simple, gracious and not commercial; it's like you are in your own home," she said. "And you always have a sense of where you are; you know you are in Jackson Hole, Wyo., or some exotic locale."
When Novogrod travels, which of course is frequently, she longs for the basics along with the spectacular. Her pet peeve? "Hotel room lighting that is so contemporary it defies any normal understanding."
This article appeared on page S - 24 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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