Stephanie Barba Mendoza is to curate this year’s Berkeley Square Collective

One of the highlights of the 2023 fair was the Berkeley Square Collective, curated by House & Garden magazine’s Interior Designer of the year, Maddux Creative. That featured a bespoke wallcovering by Fromental, demonstrating how antiques can be incorporated into a contemporary design setting. 

Now, we can announce that Mexican-born interior designer Stephanie Barba Mendoza will bring her unique vision to curate the 2024 Berkeley Square Collective. 

Based in London, Stephanie began her career here as a residential designer before joining the internationally acclaimed Martin Brudnizki Design Studio. During her decade at MBDS, she led and coordinated a diverse portfolio of global design projects that spanned hospitality, residential and retail. 

Stephanie now works as an independent designer, drawing on 16 years’ experience in managing design teams and overseeing projects from conception to completion. 

If LAPADA’s signature fair has been about anything, it is the graceful fusion of tradition and innovation in the design sphere, blending the old with the new, the antique with the modern, as its exhibitors unveil their unique treasures. 

This approach makes Stephanie a natural choice as a curator for the Collective as she draws on many reference points to fuse high with low, contemporary with antique, and the simple with the ornate. 

Stephanie’s aesthetic is defined by a celebration of colour and pattern, a love of honest materials and a passion for collaborating with artisans, and her projects are characterized by her ability to produce interiors that both surprise and inspire yet remain true to the context of her clients’ spaces and visions. 

Stephanie acknowledges the influence of fashion editor Diana Vreeland, musicians Freddie Mercury and David Bowie, artists René Magritte and Pedro Friedeberg, and designer Serge Roche as inspirations for her work. 

“I am incredibly excited to be collaborating with one of the most prestigious antiques and art fairs in Berkeley Square,” says Stephanie. “I’m looking forward to accessing extraordinary objets and art which I will incorporate into the design of our space. It’s a great opportunity to showcase the talents and creative eyes of the collectors and gallerists that are exhibiting at the fair.” 

LAPADA CEO Freya Simms is delighted to welcome Stephanie to the fair: “Her vivacious style, with its striking colours and captivating marriage of materials and patterns, is just the thing to set the tone for an exciting and vibrant fair.”