Cafiero Select - Nicole Gibbons Style

Cafiero Select is a New York City based antiques shop and design firm led by David Cafiero, whom I’ve been keeping tabs on since seeing his work featured in House & Garden a couple of years ago. I had the pleasure of meeting him at this year’s Design on a Dime event and we talked design, flea markets and he filled me in on some of the projects he’s currently working on.

The editorial from the January 2007 issue of House and Garden that caught my eye featured the East Village apartment of actress Chloe Sevigny which was filled with color, pattern and personality as well as amazing vintage and antique pieces from Cafiero’s shop where Sevigny was a frequent customer before she tapped him to design her home. I especially love the photo above and the boldness of those two identical sofas covered in Schumacher’s Kahn’s Park. Sevigny was Cafiero’s first big client and it’s hard to believe that he had only been designing for two years before this story was published.

Cafiero is definitely one of those fearless designers who’s super confident in using bold patterns and color. His aesthetic reflects an eclectic mix of antique and modern and much of his work has a rustic and slightly industrial feeling.

Cafiero’s background actually is quite interesting. As he puts it, his path to interior design was a long winding road with many pit stops along the way. Before designing Cafiero owned a cafe, a catering business and was a commercial scallop fisherman. He says the boating aesthetic, which he was surrounded by during his days as a fisherman, definitely influences much of his work.

Cafiero began designing just 5 years ago around the same time he opened his antiques shop in the East Village. When he’s not working for his design clients, he’s most likely shopping for amazing vintage and antique pieces for his shop at flea markets, antiques shops and with private dealers all around the East Coast. One of his favorite places to shop is The Elephant’s Trunk Country Flea Market in New Milford, CT, which is just a couple of hours outside New York.

Currently, Cafiero is working on designing two beach homes as well as the offices of a Brooklyn based record label. He’s also finishing up Truffles Tribeca -a huge project which he’s been working on for the past year and a half in collaboration with architect Jeffrey Povero.

Truffles Tribeca is a stylish, 291 unit rental apartment building in Tribeca in which Cafiero designed all of the model apartment spaces. The building also houses one of the city’s coolest private clubs, Trufflesprive. The ultra chic, member’s only club that spans 9,000 square feet was designed entirely by Cafiero and one of his main sources of inspiration for the space La Maison de Verre in Paris. I’ve included several photos below for your viewing pleasure and I can’t wait to see more published work from Cafiero in the future!