DECOREX VIP LOUNGE 2026

Designed by Claudia Dorsch

A woman with blonde hair, glasses, a pink sweater, and white pants stands outdoors on a snow-covered deck, with a wooden cabin, trees, and outdoor furniture around her.

I have always believed that the most memorable interiors begin long before the first drawing. They begin with curiosity — with travelling, and with discovering extraordinary workshops tucked away in mountain villages and quiet industrial estates. With conversations around a workbench, watching a craftsman shape timber by hand, or seeing a prototype emerge from a sketch.

Over the past twenty years I have been fortunate to design homes across London, the Alps and beyond. Every collaboration has become another chapter in a library of knowledge that is still growing. This lounge is where much of that experience comes together.

When Decorex invited me to design the 2026 VIP Lounge, I knew I did not want to make a typical lounge: an accumulation of chairs and sofas to rest in between appointments, pleasant and quickly forgotten. I wanted to build a real home at the fair. And I knew at once which home it should be. The chalet.

I chose the chalet because it is the one kind of building that asks you to slow down. It invites conversation. It rewards you for staying longer than you meant to. It holds you inside while you feel everything outside: timber under your hand, a fire at the centre of the room, the weather at the walls.

That idea became Back to the Future — The Chalet Reimagined.

Love,

Claudia

BACK TO THE FUTURE - THE CHALET REIMAGINED

The Concept

The chalet is the kind of building that asks you to slow down. It invites conversation. It rewards you for staying longer than you meant to. It holds you inside while you feel everything outside: timber under your hand, a fire at the centre of the room, the weather on the walls.

For the 2026 VIP Lounge, Claudia Dorsch is set to build a real home inside the exhibition hall rather than a place to rest between appointments. Not a recreation of a traditional chalet, and not a luxury hotel that happens to sit in the mountains. Something in between: familiar alpine references handled in unfamiliar ways, traditional craftsmanship set beside contemporary engineering, natural materials expressed through new techniques.

Not nostalgia. Reinterpretation.

BUILT WITH THE PEOPLE SHE TRUSTS

People often ask Claudia where she sources furniture, fabrics or lighting. The truth is that beautiful interiors are never made by beautiful products alone. They are made through relationships — with craftspeople, family businesses, artists and workshops that have spent decades, sometimes generations, perfecting a single material or a single technique.

Over more than twenty years, Claudia has built these relationships across Europe and beyond. Many of the makers behind this lounge are people she has worked with on project after project: the atelier she bought her first chandelier from in 2019, the fabric house she returns to on almost every scheme, the workshop she has trusted with carved detail on award-winning chalets before this one.

Each collaborator was invited not because their work is beautiful, though it is, but because each solved a specific part of the story — and because together, they say something no single object could. This lounge is not a collection of things. It is a gathering of people around one idea.

The Collaborators

The Architecture of Arrival
Caleo — design-led fireplaces (piece by JC Bordelet)
Amron Architectural — Kriska curtain (KriskaDECOR) & metal surfaces
Hidden Gems - Reclaimed wood cladding
Brandler - Bespoke joinery & cladding
Bar - Joinery

Sculpting the Light
Terzani — pendants: Mizu, Argent, Genesis
Tom Dixon — Melt pendants
Cameron Design House — chandeliers: Pilvi, Vetta, Halti
Esperia — Pluma & Aura lighting
Pooky — rechargeable picture & wall lights
Orluna - spots
Porta Romana - table & floor lamps

The Furniture shapes
Ben Whistler — Blue Label — bespoke upholstery: Rouel, Langdon, bespoke banquette
Billiani — chairs, incl. Fratina (est. 1911, Manzano)
Riva 1920 — stools & coffee table
Rodam - Dining tables
Sunday Jubilee - stone coffee tables
Airborne — AA 'Butterfly' chair (design 1938; Airborne ed. 1951)
Leafchair — hanging chair
Ecco Trading — Blue Moon cabinet
Julian Chichester — Kingly cabinet
Colours of Arley — bespoke striped deck-chair fabric
Coco Wolf - outdoor furniture

Dividing the Space
USM — bespoke room divider & display (est. 1885)
Nordfixus — steel-and-glass doors
Klub Kiva — DJ console & sound

Setting the Scenes
Arte International — leather & silk wallcoverings
Phillip Jeffries — mountain-scenery wallcovering
Andrew Martin — wood-effect wallcovering
House of Hackney — Plantasia woodland wallcovering
Benjamin Moore — bespoke colour palette
Mural Concept - mountain paper

Craftmanship
Ebanisteria Marelli — carved mouldings & banister
Embroidery by Design - Bespoke badges of ski towns
Nadia Waterfield Fine Art — bespoke artworks & ceramics
MKW Creative — artworks and curation
99 Projects - artworks & ceramics

Dressing the chalet
Romo / Kirkby — fabric
Pierre Frey — fabric
Dedar — fabric & wallpaper
Misia / Casamance — fabric & wallpaper
Houlès — poles, tiebacks & trimmings
Karin Sajo — fabric
Danesbridge — made-to-measure curtains
Manufactori - bobble curtain
Fibre by Auskin — furs, skins, rugs, poufs & beanbags
Ferreira de Sá — bespoke rug (est. 1946, Portugal — Portuguese Knot)

All the Senses
Notable Group - snowflakes by Umage
Ultimate Library — curated book selection
Scent Company - diffusion of mountain scent
Zermatt Unplugged - Prize sponsor of hotel stay

cOMPETITION

WIN TWO NIGHTS IN ZERMATT

A large outdoor music concert with a crowd of people gathered in front of a stage where musicians are performing. The scene takes place in a mountainous area with houses and trees in the background, under a bright sun.

Two nights at the Backstage Hotel, PLUS two tickets to Zermatt Unplugged 2027 - the festival that brings acoustic performance into the mountains that shaped this lounge.

The chalet is not just about architecture and design. It is primarily about warmth, gathering, and the rituals of alpine life — with this prize Claudia’s vision is to give a lucky vistor the chance to live inside that idea, rather than simply look at it.

The prize includes
two nights at the Backstage Hotel, Zermatt,
tickets for two to one Zermatt Unplugged concert evening of your choice, and a day on the slopes with Claudia and a private instructor.

How to enter
Hold a valid VIP ticket to Decorex 2026, and follow both @claudiainteriors and @decorex_international on Instagram. That's the entry.

A second way in
Share a photograph of the lounge on Instagram during the show, tagging both @claudiainteriors and @decorex_international, for a second chance to win.

One entry per person under each route. Full terms and conditions apply — read the full terms →