Written by: Shonquis Moreno
Photography: Frank Oudman
Courtesy of Frame Magazine - www.framemag.com

From ruby and poppy red to chartreuse and pale lavender, Karim Rashid serves up his own cocktail of colour at Powder, a New York nightclub.

Industrial designer Karim Rashid was one of those kids who never wasted a minute. He drew nonstop. He made not only clothes, but also all his own hockey equipment. He turned his parents' backyard into a golf course. At 42, he still can't remain seated for very long. His latest work of interior architecture and design, a nightclub called Powder, opened in New York's Chelsea neighbourhood last November. And then - owing to the flight of a primary investor and ensuing bankruptcy - it closed its doors, indefinitely. The elements that may well have made the space riveting and simultaneously marked it as a Rashid design were proscribed by the precarious financial situation. The budget fracas stripped the interior of LCD-screen bathroom mirrors designed to reflect live video at those powdering their noses; bars with LED lights tracking their flanks; a façade 'pixelated' with small tiles made of a stainless-steel alloy; and a 'smart' dance floor designed to change colours as clubbers tried the latest moves.

Nonetheless, a sophisticated lighting scheme and radiused walls bring Powder into its own, giving the space an ethereal quality. Most of Rashid's designs - which include everything from chess pieces, chairs and shoes to sofas, wallpaper and lighting fixtures - elicit an infantile urge to pop them in your mouth like sweets or a baby's dummy. Inside Powder, however, what Rashid usually accomplishes with form and colour, he has been forced to create with light.

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