Wynn Las Vegas Magazine by MODERN LUXURY

Wynn - 2011 - Issue 3 - Winter

Wynn Magazine - Las Vegas

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R ed is inescapable at Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. You'll spot it everywhere from the carpets to the chandeliers, with one restaurant incorporating the color of love and good fortune in its name as well as into its décor. "I think red means to me what it has come to symbolize to most people," says Roger Thomas, executive vice president of design at Wynn Design and Development. "It has to do with royalty, luxury…. It is certainly one of the warmest colors." Thomas's relationship with red dates back to when he was an ambitious child artist who had to do chores for a whole month in order to afford a tube of cadmium red. "Because red has been an expensive color to make through the ages, it has come to signify opulence and status, and royalty," says Thomas. It's not surprising, therefore, that Thomas found many ways to incorporate the hue into the design of the most luxurious resorts on the Strip, and several of those design moments have become his fond favorites. RED 8 (RESTAURANT), WYNN "Steve Wynn is always trying to find ways to honor Chinese culture and our Asian guests, and eight is a highly beneficial number. It's propitious, it's lucky. And red has always been a highly valued and lucky number in China. So we figured, hit them with both and call it Red 8. This restaurant was designed by Todd Lenahan, and we joined to design it. A little bit is me, and a lot is Todd. That wonderful blue and white porcelain ceiling in the entry with the silverware is definitely Todd. Some of the banquette shapes and the flooring are me. It was great fun to work with him. "No one had seen the red crocodile wall covering when we opened that restaurant. It's not as rare now, but it was really brand-new when we did it. I'd like to see Red 8 stay that way because it's a very classic room that I think could live forever." RED ABACA WALL COVERING, ENCORE ENTRY AND REGISTRATION "Steve is a great lover of texture, so I wanted this deep, red texture for the walls. Then I wanted some dimensional red flowers danc- ing on it, so I went looking for the best flower forms, and I found an exquisite, porcelain chrysanthemum that became the model for my flower. The heavy woven fabric is abaça, which is derived from the banana plant. It's a strong fiber that's found in currency. Abaça in its natural state is kind of a straw color. It was available in browns and charcoals, but I asked the company we used for red. It took us seven months going back and forth between dyers in Indonesia and my studio to get the right shade, but we got it." WYNN 69

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