Famed for his upbeat personality and his quirky, boundary-pushing interior designs, the news of Vick Vanlian’s passing after a short but brave battle with cancer, comes as a mighty blow to the Middle East’s design community.
The forty-year-old Lebanese-American interior designer and founder of Vick Vanlian / V World was one of the region’s most promising interior design talents, and quickly gained success in the Middle East with clients that include royalty, prominent business people, and famous Arab singers.
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, of Armenian heritage, Vanlian started his career in his father’s large furniture store. Being engulfed in the world of design from such a young age, Vanlian would go on to attend his first Milan furniture fair with his father at the age of 10. His eye for detail and quality grew, thanks to a childhood that was spent between the creative cities of Beirut, New York and Montreal.
With this lust of design, he completed his first interior design project while he was in second year at the Lebanese American University. Since then he had had a steady overflow of projects ranging from apartments, palaces, restaurants, bars and hotels – always showing the different aspects of his fun and upbeat personality with his eclectic designs that combined luxury and out-of-the-ordinary touches that embraces the pop culture of the moment.
Amongst his most eccentric creations, a chalet in the mountains, the palace of a member from the Royal Saudi family, in Jeddah, as well as penthouses for movie stars and TV personalities.
Rest in peace, Vick.