Appartus Red Room New York Design Party

“You know, when you think of fashion parties, people think of fashion week, but they always forget things like design week,” says Jonathan, a photographer in front of me waiting in line for the bar at Red Room”, the great restaurant of APPARATUS. party for NYCxDESIGN every year. “The truth is that Fashion Week parties are so full of influencers who present themselves as heirs. People here are really stylish. This elevates the entire room.

He’s not wrong. New York Fashion Week saturates the city with stylish people, but also people trying to get an Instagram post out of it. NYCxDESIGN, which runs May 16-24, takes a softer tone, but offers no less party fun. Between all the showroom openings, meetings and new brand launches, one party is always the hardest in town: the annual APPARATUS event.

The modernist lighting studio hosts an annual party with a strictly enforced dress code and theme that brings out the best in the design world year after year. This year, CEO and Artistic Director Gabriel Hendifar’s vision was “Red Room,” inviting people inside only red, white or black for the evening. When I arrive at the building around 9:30 a.m., there’s already a long line down 30th Street, with everyone strictly adhering to the dress code in black boas, scarlet dresses, and white tuxedos.

Apparatus and Hendifar transformed a lighting company’s office and showroom into a magic trick of sorts. Outside, 30th and 6th avenues are unpretentious. There are a lot of ugly fabric stores and office buildings that look like they could use a good pressure washing. Even in the lobby, guests slide in dresses across a tiled floor like in a college. However, upon stepping off the elevator, a large bank vault type door is like a portal to the world of Hendifar.

Inside, the walls are all covered in a deep red hue. The ceilings rise, where they are marked by the APPARATUS pendant lights in the room. At a few different tables, it’s every red-colored candy you could imagine, from red vines and gummy bears to sour lips and red leaf Rolos. A DJ is playing disco music off to the side and on a large central table is a bronze statue of a resting man who I recognize from the invitation.

Across a hallway is the large back room where two bars prepare drinks for people. This is where you see the brightest lights in the design world competing for the same shots of champagne as me. The woman in front of me, a renowned designer who I won’t name, sees the bartender’s rationing flowing, orders two “for a friend” and, as she walks away, throws one into the other and winks at me.

Everyone is happiest when they are walking around eating candy and drinking champagne while dressed fancy. It’s just a fact. That’s why everyone gets along so well here. During the day, it’s just the APPARATUS office staff, and I wonder if they’re keeping it in that dreary lighting for their 9:30 a.m. standing meeting. John Derian emerges from what is normally a conference room. He wears an all-white suit and remarks how great it was to meet up with people all week for NYCxDESIGN. Everyone gets along in the design world. On a trip home for another Twizzler, I see Architect West Chin, and after five minutes of catching up, decides he’s going to go find a place to watch the Knicks. In the mirrored connecting hallway, expert design consultant Kate Berry takes a selfie with a friend.

Devices aren’t “effortlessly” cool (a phrase that gets thrown around too often), they work really hard to be that cool, and that’s a good thing. If there was a party for a few hundred people your in the office, it would be plastic cups, mulled white wine and fluorescent lighting. This group created a pocket dimension on 30th Street so people could experience a night in a sort of scarlet fantasy world. As I enter the main room, the DJ is still playing disco, with a man breakdancing in front of the booth. As people take out their iPhones to film it, I see someone in my peripheral vision. An interior designer I recognize pours silver bowls from Rolo’s into her purse. We lock eyes and she confesses to me. “I have to go, but these are my favorites and it’s going to be a long day at the design show tomorrow.” His secret is safe with me.