NOMAD Makes Its US Debut in the Hamptons
Inside the itinerant fair’s first American outing — at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, with a new chapter of Giorgio Armani / Unveiled.
NOMAD Hammptons 2026, Watermill Center, Courtesy The Watermill Center.
Image left, NOMAD founder Nicolas Bellavance Lecompte © Photo by N. Berenzhnoy, Courtesy of NOMAD Circle. Right, Nomad The Watermill Center. Photo Maria Baranova, Courtesy of The Watermill Center.
Months after we followed NOMAD into the snow at St Moritz, the itinerant art-and-design fair founded by Nicolas Bellavance-Lécompte, the Beirut-and-Milan architect who reimagined the collectible design fair as a roving, site-specific affair, lands at Robert Wilson's Watermill Center for its inaugural American edition, with a new chapter of Giorgio Armani / Unveiled, and a poignant sense of occasion. THE FLUXX on the next stop.
NOMAD was last in the alpine hush of St Moritz, where the fair had folded collectible design into a former clinic and Giorgio Armani had unveiled the first chapter of a new collaboration. NOMAD has always been a fair that refuses to behave like one, no convention hall, no booths, no neat partition of art from design from jewellery. It prefers a place that already has a point of view: a cliffside villa, a Venetian palazzo, a Capri monastery, a decommissioned Abu Dhabi airport terminal.
This summer, the compass points east — to Long Island’s East End, and a site charged with more meaning than most.
Catena Series Chandelier (2025), By Markus Haase, Catena Series Bronze, Onyx, LEDs Photo Credit Simon Leung and Courtesy of Todd Merrill Studio.
Image left, April by Darvish Fakhr (2025). Oil on linen, courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery. Right, the Cavalo Table Lamp, Jessica Gersten Design in collaboration with Jason Koharik. Courtesy of Jessica Gersten Design.
From 25 to 28 June 2026, NOMAD stages its first-ever US edition at The Watermill Center in Water Mill, the Hamptons — and for once, the venue is the headline. Across the Center’s studios, fields and interiors, international galleries will stage immersive presentations that blur the line between object and environment, with sculptural furniture, fine jewellery and one-of-a-kind design unfolding not in booths but in dialogue with architecture and landscape. It is, in other words, the fullest expression yet of everything that made the St Moritz edition so compelling.
A site with a soul
Sophie Dries Curated Exhibition, Bob Wilson Photography by Dominique Nabokov, Courtesy of Dominique Nabakov. Special Project curated by Sophie Dries with Robert Wilson Estate and Trust.
To understand why this edition matters, you must understand the place. The Watermill Center is an incubator of radical creativity founded by the visionary artist and director Robert Wilson in 1992, built on the site of a former Western Union research facility about two hours from New York. It sits on ten acres of Shinnecock ancestral land, a laboratory that already behaves less like a venue than like a sanctuary for ongoing experiment.
There is a quiet poignancy to NOMAD’s arrival, too. Robert Wilson died last July at 83, and the Hamptons edition will be the first major cultural event held at Watermill since his passing. The organisers settled on the Center after Wilson himself granted them permission to use his space, making this debut something closer to an inheritance than a booking. For a fair built on reading the spirit of a place, there could be no more resonant US beginning.
The Hamptons hold particular significance as a place historically shaped by artistic experimentation. This edition is conceived as a meeting point between international positions and a deeply rooted local cultural landscape. Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, Co-Founder, Nomad.
Armani / Unveiled: the next chapter
Giorgio Armani UnveiledCandle Holder No. 1 (2025)_By Ariel Dearie_Hand-shaped patinated brass with repoussé detail and silver solder_Photo credit by Michael Biondo_Courtesy of Giorgio Armani_Unveiled_Curated by Abby Bangser.
For readers who followed our St Moritz coverage, the most anticipated thread continues here. Having debuted “Giorgio Armani / Unveiled” at NOMAD’s St Moritz edition in February, the Italian house brings the second chapter to Watermill — again curated by Abby Bangser, founder of Object & Thing. The pairing carries its own history: the late Giorgio Armani collaborated with Robert Wilson in 2000 on a retrospective of his career, first staged at the Guggenheim before travelling the world, which makes the choice of venue feel less like coincidence than homage.
This iteration deepens the dialogue between fashion and collectible design. Alongside pieces from the Armani/Casa interiors collection — the Trocadero table, the Esagono stool, the Pretty dormeuse chair, and tableware including Victoria Limoges porcelain and Victor Murano glassware, the exhibition will present thirteen archival fashion pieces drawn from the Armani/Archivio collection. Bangser’s curation platforms artists who prioritise craftsmanship and material, including special commissions by Ariel Dearie and Jonathan Kline.
The galleries, and a garden of memory
Woman Movement by Sydney Albertini (2026).Oil and charcoal on kraft paper. Courtesy of Tristan Hoare.
Image left, Stone Rose Floor Light by Chen Chen and Kai Williams (2025. Photo Credit Joe Kramm, Courtesy of The Future Perfect. Right Bibby by Ahryun Lee (2024. Porcelain Photo Credit by Julia Schärdel and Courtesy of J. Lohmann Gallery.
The final line-up draws together galleries, estates and site-specific presentations spanning collectible design, fine art and jewellery, staged across the Watermill Center grounds.
Among the confirmed exhibitors are Gallery FUMI, Maison Gerard, Mathieu Lehanneur, The Future Perfect and Todd Merrill Studio — leading names in collectible design — alongside Eric Firestone Gallery, which brings a strong local presence across New York and East Hampton. Object & Thing arrives from nearby New Preston, while JK Art & Design Projects represents Southampton on home ground. International reach comes by way of Robilant and Tristan Hoare Gallery from London, Leila Heller Gallery from Dubai and New York, and Silvia Furmanovich from São Paulo, with jewellery houses TABAYER and IPPOLITA adding a New York note. Anchoring the programme is Giorgio Armani / Unveiled, the next chapter of the house's collectible design project, and the Gaetano Pesce: The Oman Collection, presented by Kalei NYC with the Gaetano Pesce Estate.
In keeping with NOMAD’s ethos, the fair frames its approach as collectible design “not as spectacle, but as an intimate, site-responsive conversation shaped by context and cultural intent.”
One special project speaks directly to the setting. In partnership with Sisley Paris, NOMAD presents a collaboration with the Hamptons-based artist Sydney Albertinicentred on her Botanical Series, immersive works exploring imagined landscapes shaped by memory, travel and sensation. Sited within Watermill’s wooded campus, it promises to be the kind of moment where art, place and atmosphere dissolve into one another.
Out East, and worth the journey
Geata Stacked, 2026 By Casey McCafferty, Unique Bleached and Whitewashed Oak. Courtesy of Casey McCafferty and JK Art + Design Projects.
Image left, OVO CHAIR by Roham Shamekh (2024). Stainless steel, wood lacquer. Courtesy of Leila Heller Gallery. Right, Meritalia® by Gaetano Pesce 543 Broadway Nine Leg Chairs and 12 Leg Table, 1993 Limited Edition (1_66) and (1_33), Resin,Steel. Photography Charlie Rubin Courtesy Kalei NYC.
NOMAD has always understood that its fairs are as much about the pilgrimage as the programme, and the Hamptons in late June need little selling. After a long New York winter, it is finally time for weekends “Out East” — beach days, marina-side cocktails, vineyard tours and a season of cultural programming that runs all summer. A curated VIP programme of visits, talks, performances and gatherings, extending beyond Watermill into private homes and cultural sites across the Hamptons, will be announced closer to the dates.
Read The Fluxx NOMAD St. Moritz feature here
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