A chic Sienna Miller enjoyed the view at Purvi Padia’s Mother’s Day brunch, which celebrated the launch of the designer’s Lioness Collection that supports Unicef’s Project Lion.
35 Entryways with Impressive Artwork
A Mirrored Entry
Purvi Padia Design used a mirrored console to enhance this art-filled entry on the Upper East Side.
Sienna Miller Talks Travel and Children at UNICEF’s Project Lion Launch
“Being a parent and imagining the conditions and the poverty that many of the children are living with in the world, it seems insane to not do everything you can to support initiatives like this,” said Sienna Miller at last night’s launch of UNICEF’s Project Lion. The campaign serves to protect and improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in India and is the brainchild of Miller’s friends Purvi and Harsh Padia. Joining the English actress—who was dressed in a sleek slip dress designed by her sister, Savannah—was her mother, Josephine, and her cohost, Today anchor and former First Daughter Jenna Bush Hager.
Forbes: Reaching India’s Forgotten Children
Raised in the United States, UNICEF USA New York board member Purvi Padia made many childhood trips to visit family in India. The poverty she saw there made a deep and lasting impression on her. Even when she was small, she was determined to find ways to help. Now a mother herself, she’s working with UNICEF to improve the lives of children growing up in residential care institutions in India, and teaching her own children the importance of giving back to those less fortunate.
Lionheart: Interior designer Purvi Padia is giving back with Project Lion
Interior designer Purvi Padia has a lot to celebrate. This year marks her eponymous firm’s 10-year anniversary, and she has recently taken a successful leap into humanitarian work with Project Lion.
As a first generation Indian-American, Padia recognized that she had access to opportunities unavailable to many, especially in her parents’ country of origin. “Everything that I’ve done in life has been informed by this first generation hard-working mentality, never forgetting what my roots are and where I come from,” says Padia.
Sienna Miller Talks Lioness Collection/UNICEF Project Lion
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.”