These One-of-a-kind Bowls Help Feed Indian Children
When interior designer Purvi Padia, a first-generation Indian-American, visited her family in India when she was 7, she was struck by the poverty throughout the country, particularly among its youth. That memory never faded, and decades later, Padia and her husband, Harsh Padia, launched Project Lion in partnership with UNICEF to help the 1.5 million displaced children in India.
The charitable initiative launched this past May, and was inspired by the movie Lion, which portrays the suffering and marginalization of the displaced children in India. “Humanitarian work is a major passion, but my real work is interior design, so I wanted to figure out a way to bring the two together,” Padia tells Business of Home. “I wanted to create a piece that could be based in Indian values and design where the proceeds would go to Project Lion.”
Tracy Anderson Talks Lioness Collection/UNICEF Project Lion
Q&A with New York-based Interior Designer Purvi Padia – NY Spaces
NYS: We love that you create such double-duty homes for families. How do you design an interior that can withstand young children yet still be the perfect place to hold a dinner party?
Purvi Padia: I believe strongly that homes should not only be beautiful but also practical and livable. A huge part of that is making a home functional and welcoming to every member of the family.
I have a few rules of thumb when designing for young families:
First, use organic shapes. Cutting down on sharp corners make pieces kid-friendly and organic shapes, such as a petrified wood stump as a side table or a tufted ottoman in place of a cocktail table introduce an element of softness, warmth and comfort.
Second, while I love gorgeous lighting, floor and table lamps are a hazard for young children. For families, I love the idea of incorporating show-stopping sconces and chandeliers in unexpected places. Where I might use tall floor lamps to give a room height in a project without young children, for families I opt instead for heavy (read: untippable) sculptures displayed in the corner of the room.
And finally, we always gravitate to double-duty pieces and kid-friendly fabrics—sometimes even in projects where the clients don’t have kids! Two of our favorite tricks are creating cocktail tables that can open up to stow all the kids’ clutter, and we love durable fabrics—today there are so many that look chic and clean up easily.
Can a Traditional Leather Sofa Cozy Up to a Colorful Acrylic Table?
Décor Challenge: A classic Chesterfield sofa must share living space with a screechingly vivid side table. Design pros offer suggestions to bridge the pair’s aesthetic gap
Solution 1
Add airy art to mimic the translucence of the acrylic table. Problematically, the sofa is far more substantial than the H-shaped table by Korean designer Jaehyuk Yang. Monochrome prints of wispy leaves, arranged in a floaty pastiche, relate to both elements. “I wanted the art to feel heavy but light,” explained New York designer Purvi Padia. “A grouping achieves that.”
For UNICEF Moms, Helping The World’s Children Is All In The Family
“When you become a mother, you really see firsthand how vulnerable and innocent children are, and it’s impossible not to see the gravity of the fact that so many children around the world have no support system. I think about how much my children need me and need a community of love and strength and guidance to have a shot at life. So many children in developing countries don’t even have a sliver of that. So I started Project Lion.
In its first three years, Project Lion and UNICEF India will serve 200,000 Indian orphans to ensure they have legal paperwork, adequate nutrition, basic healthcare and access to education. It will also work to get children out of institutionalized care and into longterm family care, and will create alternative models for nontraditional family care with a child-centered approach. I consider myself so fortunate to be in a position to make a real difference in the future of India’s most vulnerable children and to empower them to rewrite their futures.”
Hometown Honoree: Purvi Padia
FOR LOVE OF LEXINGTON
“I was born in NYC and moved to the Lexington area when I was 5. My parents loved the big city but wanted to raise children in a place that felt more like home, and they couldn’t have chosen a better place than Lexington. No matter where I’ve gone and what I’ve done in life, those small town values that Lexington helped instill in me have always given me a perspective that I would never otherwise have. Going to Lexington HS and playing tennis for a team that I was so proud to be a part of has played a huge role in shaping the person that I have grown up to be. I am so grateful to that community for showing me the importance of community, kindness, inclusivity and the true power of cheering for one another.”
JUST A GLIMPSE INTO HER STORY
“I left Lexington in 1996 to go to college at the University of Michigan and then moved to NYC in 2000 where I still currently live. After 8 years in the corporate design industry, I went back to school to get my Masters in Interior Design and opened my design firm in 2009. I married my college sweetheart (in Ohio, of course!) in 2005. I now split my time between Interior Design, Project Lion (a UNICEF initiative I founded), sitting on multiple non profit boards, being a mother to my 11 year old son and 7 year old daughter and fueling my passion for travel. Thank you Big Lex for giving me a foundation that has always served me so well!”
Giving Back to India’s “Forgotten” Children with UNICEF
UNICEF Project Lion Launch 2018
Purvi Padia’s Passion Led her to Project Lion
Purvi Padia has lived life by following her inspiration and intuition. Purvi’s most profound inspirations have always come from her parents – their strength, their perseverance, their humanitarianism and their connection to India.
Purvi Padia is a first generation Indian American, whose parents were both physicians who studied in India and later immigrated to the United States. They came to the U.S. with the dream of offering unlimited opportunities to their future children.