Hey Siri! Why Is the Design World Descending on Dallas Right Now?

Last year, during one of the numerous peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Kips Bay Decorator Show House opened its doors in Dallas for the first time. For those who attended in-person (and for the rest of us who were more comfortable with the virtual experience), the 27 discrete rooms created by 27 world-class interior designers were a wonder to behold. On September 24, the second edition will be unveiled. It’s just the event to impel travel-starved aesthetes to grab their 10-gallon hats and head south. Here are five places no design lover should miss while in Dallas this month.

Tony Tasset’s 30-foot fiberglass eyeball sculpture across from the Joule’s entrance makes it the place to see and be seen. (Ba-dum ching!). Owned by oil tycoon Tim Headington, the 160-room, art-filled property is located in the city’s historic center, a few minutes’ walk up Main Street from Dealey Plaza, where John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Later this fall will see the opening of Sassetta, a stylish new restaurant designed by ELLE DECOR A-List designer Jean Liu.

The Dallas satellite of the Kips Bay Decorator Show House opens on September 24 in a Georgian-style house in Old Preston Hollow. Twenty-five designers, including stars Ken Fulk, Robin Henry, and Martyn Lawrence Bullard, will create spaces of pure fantasy and whimsy.

Dallas is not only a mecca for design enthusiasts and second-gunman theorists, but also for high-end shopping. (It is the birthplace of Neiman Marcus, after all.) Last November, Forty Five Ten, an expertly edited multibrand fashion boutique that was founded in 2000 by Brian Bolke and Shelly Musselman, reopened after a long pandemic shutdown.

The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex has long been one of America’s great arts destinations with museums of note like the Louis Kahn–designed Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth by Tadao Ando, and the Nasher Scuplture Center, arguably one of architect Renzo Piano’s finest buildings. Starting September 25, check out a sweeping exhibition of nonagenarian California artist Betye Saar’s beautiful and bizarre conceptual works.

Near downtown, this former industrial neighborhood has, over the years, been transformed into the vibrant cultural, retail, and culinary nucleus of the city. Take a spin around the Dallas Contemporary and Goss-Michael Foundation before eating at the Charles and checking out the new Garde showroom, which deals in furniture by designers including Vincent Van Duysen and Noro Khachatryan.