Latest design ideas jostle for attention at ICFF

Design buffs walking into the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York need discipline and focus or they'll end up like I did last year: one hour in, and I hadn't left the first aisle.

Booth after booth of gorgeous tile had me in thrall. Glassy metallics, resin embedded with tiny seeds, and luscious jewel-toned ceramics had me mesmerized — until a reconnoiter of the floor map told me I had 145,000 square feet of stuff yet to see. Oops.

So this year, I strode in with a strategy. Avoid the dramatically lit booths laden with silk and steel wall panels, ginormous white leather sofas and ultra new electronic doodads; most of that stuff is aimed at decorators and architects who conjure up daring hotel lobbies or stylish vodka bars. Make only brief note of the over-the-top pieces: the massive glass dining tables with LED-trimmed undermounted wine shelves, for instance.

Instead, seek out what most of us homeowners could imagine using.

A sensible plan, in theory. In practice, hopeless.

Because the joy of the ICFF — which takes place over four days each spring — is its folly. A Japanese furry robot seal shares floor space with banana scented wallpaper and Shaker brooms. Just when a simple oval bath vessel might soothe your eye at Kohler, there's a riot of tangle-y colored wool on the floor at Patricia Urquoia's rug booth.

Here are silkworm casings spun gently into a lampshade, there a wallpaper panel crawling with giant moths. Girly, glossy silhouettes give way to minimalist slivers of exotic wood. Design-for-a-dollar recycled treasures share an aisle with top-of-the-line high tech stoves.

Not everything is over the top. Examples of beautiful, tasteful furniture included Michigan's Pieter VanTuyl's flawless collection of inlaid benches, slate tables, mirrors and felt rugs. Pure organic silhouettes, executed well, blending modern sensibility with traditional craft in fresh ways.

Young Pratt grad Talitha James presented her Sola desk, a curl of veneer that should find its way into every classroom in the country.

Trove — Jee Levin and Randall Buck's New York-based wall-covering design house — was back this year with a new collection of lampshades, wood veneer panels and rugs, photoprinted with ethereal feathers, blossoms and tendrils of smoke that gave off a wonderful otherworldly vibe.