ELLE-egance: That's what designs are about

The Elle Décor International Design Awards (EDIDA) have established themselves as the most prestigious home décor awards in the country in the short gap of four years. This year, the EDIDAs were held on September 6 at the Hilton Towers and awards were given away for Designer of the Year, Best Furniture of the Year, Best Fabric, Best Bedroom Décor, Wall Finishes, among others. As Pramiti Madhavji, editor of Elle Décor puts it, "The awards are an attempt to showcase the best of product design in homes and to provide a platform for new and upcoming designers".

In keeping with that spirit and through a process of internal judging by the magazine, the most prominent winners were judged in various categories and the awards handed out in the ambience of an internationally chic décor. Icy blue, steel, transparent and metallic was the theme for the EDIDA evening. Indirect lighting of the tables gave a surreal glow while some tables had metal buckets with an ice globe embellished with a tinsel tree. The awards themselves were given out by personalities like Harsh Goenka, Simone Tata, Laxman Shreshtha, I M Kadri, Shahab Durazi and Suchitra Krishnamoorthi.

Bagging the plum award for Designer of the Year was Kavi Pradeep Thangraj from Delhi-based Magppie design. Thangraj won for his range of contemporary stainless steel-based table-top accessories. His creations include “Window”, “Arc” and “Lean On Me” coffee mugs, “Hold Me” cappuccino cup, the “Twin Towers” salt and pepper shakers, a “Citrus Squeezer” which doesn’t require the lemon to be halved. Says Thangraj, “The award means a lot of goosebumps for me — in all the right places! It’s the biggest recognition that I will ever get for my work in home décor in India.”

Also on the podium was Sheree Carlos of Yamini who won for her store’s ‘Tranquility Linen’ collection, which is all about bedspreads and bedroom accessories in natural shades. Says Carlos, “”While Indians are traditionally attracted to sunny yellows and zingy orange colours, with the ‘Tranquillity Collection’ the attempt was to create in the absence of colours. We like to tweak clichés at Yamini and the collection was our interpretation of the natural colours available to us.”

Other winners included Twinkle Khanna for Best Wall Finishes, Neeru Kumar for Fabric of the Year, Dhruvkant Amin and Abhijit Bansod for Best Furniture, Alistair McCullum for Best Table Top Accessories, Usha Prajapati for Best Lighting, Shweta Jain for Best Student Design, Amish Shah and Nitco Tiles for Best Bathroom Design, Shyam Ahuja for Best Flooring Décor, Shweta Jain for Best Student Design and the sponsor’s prizes for Swarovski Décor to Ravi Sonthalia and Saurabh Sehrawat. With blue and white cocktails, iced hors d’oeuvres and a fusion of French, Italian and South-East Asian cuisines spicing up the evening, it was certainly an evening to remember.

- Kavi Thangraj - the Designer of the Year

And the award goes to...

(Clockwise from top)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- Abhijit Bansod for the two-gether seat

- Twinkle Khanna for wall finishes

- Usha Prajapati for Radiance Bubble lighting

- Vikram Ahuja for Gilchrist Sand rug

- Sheree Carlos for Tranquility Linen

- Dhruvkant Amin for Lunar Lounge chair