Have you read our feature on Samantha Knapp and Tiger Lily’s yet? We’ve profiled the Greenwich-based designer and her family’s fashion-forward home-design business in our current issue.
She’s kept in touch since we first met her back in March – our introduction was at her booth filled with cutting-edge custom furniture and accessories at the Architectural Digest Home Design Show in Manhattan – and recently invited us down to a lecture at the National Arts Club, also in the city.
We jumped at the chance to attend the event at the historic club on Gramercy Park South.
And it didn’t disappoint, with the elegant surroundings serving as the perfect backdrop for a talk arranged by Knapp, who is co-chairperson of the Decorative Arts Committee of the club.
This latest edition of the monthly lecture series on design featured Christopher Hyland, who spoke on “The High Design of Luxury Lifestyle.” Hyland is the founder of HYLAND Magazine, a digital lifestyle publication devoted to design, décor, travel and art. He also is a noted purveyor of high-end fabrics, wall covering, trimmings, furniture, lighting, accessories and rugs, based in Manhattan’s famed to-the-trade D&D (Decoration and Design) Building.
Hyland’s varied experiences came together in a wonderful tour he took the audience on, from his own childhood and its artistic influences leading to the varied projects he has worked on and the journeys he has taken over the years. We visited New England and France, India and England, Manhattan and Long Island, Greece, Ireland, the Alps and Asia, Italy and Beirut. Throughout, the stories touched on topics both detailed (the origins of a particular fabric pattern) to broad (the history of a family’s British estate through the generations). We heard about charitable efforts and grand country-house parties, of artists’ inspirations and treasured recipes.
By the evening’s end, we had virtually traveled through an incredible world filled with luxurious, artistic living, with Hyland as our guide.
Concluding, Hyland shared a few words that a French teacher long ago had told him, a philosophy of sorts that clearly has served him well: “One must engage life.”
Thanks to Hyland, Knapp and the lecture series, we were all inspired to strive to do just that.
