There’s something in the air regarding this weekend’s Salon Art + Design fair in New York, to the point that Monica and I decided, independent of each other, to attend for our first time ever. In past years, there were nods towards our version of contemporary design, but the fair often felt too conservative for our tastes, too reliant on vintage to be relevant to our audience, or simply too focused on work we’d already seen earlier on the design-fair circuit. But this year feels different —already we’ve received previews of things like Max Lamb’s weirdly cool new chair for Gallery Fumi, Charlap Hyman Herrero’s booth design for Patrick Parrish Gallery, and, the mother of them all, an entire suite of furniture by one of our longtime favorite designers, Tomás Alonso, for the Belgian gallery Victor Hunt. The collection, entitled The Vaalbeek Project, is a teaser for an interior Alonso is working on in Belgium, to be completed next spring. It includes new editions of some older designs — such as this insanely chic, stackable rose and green marble coffee table from 2014 — but each piece feels like an instant classic. (Can we talk about that rug???) Says the gallery: “The aim is to rival historic homes and elevate it into a true contemporary setting realized through Tomás’s meticulous and extensive custom tailored designs.” We’d say they’re certainly on track.