KLD and DFS teamed up earlier this month for the Be Conference from Maven46 which was held at the beautiful Richmond event centre in Smithfield Dublin.
Part-conference and part-experiential extravaganza, ‘Be’ 2019 featured four stages (styled by KLD), 10 rooms filled with exciting surprises, and 20 inspiring female speakers to motivate and learn from. On the agenda was fashion, beauty, life and inspiration with a full day of interactive talks, live panels, masterclasses, and experiential activity—led by top females in their industries, including KLD’s own Róisín Lafferty.
Roisin took to the stage and told us all about her rise in the interiors industry and also gave some tips on how to make your home work for you.
But before the day, KLD designer Vicki McGahon was tasked with styling four stage areas and a chill out room with furniture provided by DFS. The location was the Richmond Event Centre which has been recently been refurbished to a beautiful standard and completely modernised, yet keeping a lot of its original features.
The rooms we were assigned were the Tea Room, The Banquet Room, The Lecture Room and the Auditorium. The biggest challenge was that none of these spaces actually had a stage so although we had to pick furniture for function for each of the speakers and interviewers we also had to create some sort of back drop for the eye to focus.
The Tea Room.
Probably the easiest as this room name really reflects the feel it is long with high ceilings and a beautiful balcony to the end. So much light comes into this space. The existing set up was perfect here with dark mahogany tables and chairs. So there was no question really that the Bailey deep button sofa in burgundy was the option here it complimented everything already in the space but gave an element of contrast with the deep vibrant burgundy. Then to sit along side that we chose the Lucy Chair in Blush Pink. As a finishing touch we added a beautiful cherry blossom tree to draw attention to the space and furniture.
The Banquet Room,
This space is on the first floor, directly above the tea room, similar in size and flooded with light. The furniture in this space were soft pastel blue chairs which was the only colour everything else within the space was neutral soft greys and silver pendant globe lights. We very much took inspiration from the pastel blue and carried that onto our stage set and furniture selections. Scandinavian and pastel was the theme so we chose the Hoxton 3 seater in and ocean pastel green we complimented this with our 3rd pastel colour Pink and chose the Zinc armchair to sit along side this. For the stage set we actually used clothes rails and got the very talented Gingko Florists to create some amazing dried displays that we hung from the clothes rails to create that stage set. Also used here was the Isna rug from DFS in small and medium and layered them.
The Auditorium
Probably the most difficult space to create a stage the space at the top of the room was narrow and obviously with the seats rising it was going to be difficult to create impact. The windows and nearly 3m tall so it was about thinking of a way to dress the space. We decided to hang drops of fabric between the windows which very effectively changed the feel of the space. And we chose to create a linear layout of the Zania sofa with and open arm chaise end. The colour choices here reflected the fabric we used between the walls.
The Lecture Room.
Not the most visually appealing space of them all very much screamed lecture room. For this one being the smallest we felt a 3 seater and chair composition would overcrowd the front of the space and we opted for two of the Marl cuddlers which we love in a bluey grey leather. More of a masculine feel to this space it was darker than the rest. What I loved about this was that we just decided to do an array of floor lamps to create a back drop and it worked out amazingly we just chose the largest floor lamp from Dwell.co.uk.
DFS Chill out Room
Some people are afraid to mix colour so we decided to give this space a serious pop of colour which in fact I don’t think deflected from the stunning original fire place of the vintage dresser. We chose the lovely Mya sofa from DFS’s new Sofa so Good range in a gorgeous teal wool fabric. We mixed this with navy, red, blue and some mustard it really was a statement of colour. And everyone loved it!
Here is a short video of Be Summit and the beautiful furniture from DFS and Dwell.
Our sincere thanks goes to both DFS and Dwell, their staff and crew for helping us out with this logistical feat. Thanks also to O’Carroll Consulting for bringing us all together and inviting us to be part of the event. Finally thanks to Tanya and Adina from Maven46 for organising such a wonderful summit. It was a fantastic day, inspiring and enlightening in equal measure.