NEW YORK - "Nothing feels better than being first," the interior-designer said. "I was first to get a silver-thread Ghazni wool carpet, and now all my clients have them. Today I'm high on these silk lamp things. I think they'll go with the rugs, as a matter of fact. Isn't that amusing?"

She'd traveled from Babylon, Long Island, to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for Design Week, a cluster of conventions for designers of industrial, office, and home interiors, trade shows for "purveyors of the East Coast Style," and the competitive, upscale consumers who look to them for guidance.

The annual trade show, held earlier this month and not open to the public, was populated with people just like her, people who love being first.

Here were all the cutting-edge "silk lamp things," rugs, furniture, upholstery, garden sculptures, and refrigerators required to keep them ahead of the pack. It was a glossy, dressed-in-black crowd, and the background they moved against defied the "trade show" label. These aren't "booths," they're "merchandising environments," thank you very much. And the products inside may well be this year's Next Big Things.

Kravet, for instance, makes tassels, trims, and upholstery cloth for high-end designers and architects. They set up shop under a sort of sheik's tent, a snug, semi-dark nook decked with thick brocade, carpeted by crisscrosses of Aubusson, piled with thick pillows covered in their trademark fabrics.

Obsequious salespeople scuttle about, offering everything but hookahs to potential clients.

Like several others at the show, this group deals in dark, masculine colors and textures, designs reminiscent of Oriental and Turkish rugs. The latest in the Kravet line is fabric labeled Joseph Abboud, a hot men's clothing designer. His rich, gold-and-russet fabrics are all glowing silk and tweedy wool, straight out of the haberdashery and onto the sofa. The final effect may be like sitting on a giant version of your favorite hundred-dollar necktie.

The same butter-yellow and poppy-red tones turn up in those "silk lamp things." These are six-foot-tall floor lamp/sculptures by Israeli sculptor Ayala Serfaty, who calls them "Morning Glories." They're simply stiff silk organza stretched over metallic frames and fluted at the top. They're organic, tall, and very different, and offered only by Stephanie Odegard Co. of New York.

The Odegard display focused on rare Tibetan carpets. These are the familiar hand-knotted wool or silk available elsewhere, but the designs and textures are startlingly contemporary and user-friendly. They'd work almost anywhere, with warm dun, rose, beige, and Delft-blue colors waving and whirling over seven-foot expanses.

Waves, whirls, and whorls are this year's contemporary carpet choices, judging from more than a dozen displays. Bright yellow or deep red is the background of choice, with squiggles and blobs reminiscent of biology and botany slides. For more classical tastes there's a wide range of Orientals and sculpted weave ... or inlaid marble.

There are those who'd like to carpet the walls, even.

"Textra" is thickly textured wall covering made of fiber glass. It's been used for years in Europe, according to sales rep Phyllis Sharp, but it's just now making its way over the Atlantic and into (at least for now) American offices. It looks like fabric, goes up like wallpaper, covers ugly or aging plaster, concrete, and drywall, and it takes paint wonderfully well, she said. Johns-Manville manufactures Textra; you can buy it at Sherwin-Williams outlets.

The raw material is transparent white, but once up and painted, it looks for all the world like sisal, linen, herringbone tweed, berber or bargello-weave carpet or upholstery.

But walls and floors are background to designers like Tucker Robbins, this year's hot young talent. After 10 years in a monastery, backed by his family's sporting-goods fortune and fabulous connections, Mr. Robbins ventured into the wilds of Guatemala and the Philippines and came out a decorator. Using exotic hardwoods (recycled from buildings in Rain Forest areas), and top-grade leather, Mr. Robbins creates simple, indigenous furniture that echoes forms found in forests and veldts.

"I am trying to achieve a primal elegance where ancient patinas and primitive woodworking gives soul to modern minimalist designs," he said, using the limpid language of the artsy.

Tukuro bamboo ladders make nifty bathroom towel racks, and chairs with rattan or human features will meet that primal need to be the first in the neighborhood to have one.

And then there's The Table. Far and away from Mr. Robbins's exotics are Smith and Watson Radial Tables, handcrafted in mahogany and rosewood, and clever as all get-out. The circular tabletops glisten with rich veneers, and bases can be made in civilized styles from Biedermeier to Empire. But it's the mechanical aspect that makes these tables special.

Back in 1835, Robert Jupe of London designed a radial extension mechanism that expanded a six-person table to seat 12. When the tabletop is turned counterclockwise, eight pie-shaped sections radiate out from the center to make room for dart-shaped leaves, which fit perfectly between. It's an elegant geometry exercise, and it can be yours, made-to-order in Brooklyn, for about $13,500.

Out on the other end of the taste spectrum is SculptArt Creations, a Scottish company that combines bronze wildlife sculptures with clear-glass tabletops. Combine the Hippoquarium at the zoo with the coffee table, and you get the idea.

SculptArt designer Mark Stoddart was inspired during an Africa trip when he saw hippos eye-deep in water. Substitute a glass tabletop for that water level, and ... Eureka! It's witty and eye-catching; there's a sinking Titanic version, too. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin bought one with a Lunar Landing Module base.

Another slightly wacky innovation is the Chaise de Soleil, a $5,000 solar-powered deck chair for those who just can't get comfortable.

Ten years ago, retiree and sun-worshipper Jerry Felling, who lives in Northern California, wanted to loll the warm outdoors without exposing himself to cancer-causing rays.

"It was always too windy, too cold, too sunny, too shady," explained Helen Bommarito, Mr. Felling's niece. "He and his wife needed a nice place to sit and put up their feet, but something they could get into and out of easily.

Something with a sun shade they could adjust without constantly getting up and down. Something that could stay outdoors all year and still look nice."

Several prototypes later, Mr. Felling marketed his first yellow-and-white cabana-striped Chaise de Soleil two-seater lounge.

"You push a button, and the seat reclines, clear down to a daybed if you want to have a nap. Sun or shade, the positions are infinite. And the solar cell on the top powers it, so you don't have to plug it in anywhere. And it's on casters, so you can move it around."

There are plenty more eye-catchers and "how'd they do that's" and "ooh-aahs" to be found at the Design Week shows: A dining table covered in cowhide embossed to resemble alligator skin; gleaming baby grand player pianos tinkling torch-songs; bathtub knobs of Baccarat crystal; and thousands of tiles for bathrooms, kitchens, porches, and sidewalks, painted, glazed, crazed, and mosaic. The displays sparkle with gold and silver leaf, and clipboard-toting decorators don't hesitate to touch.

"Cool, smooth, porcelain-y. Could be slippery," the Long Island designer said. "Not for old people. Not for people with kids. But I got just the lady who'd love this. She wears those clogs, you know, rubber soles. No problem." She turned to the salesman.

"You sold much of this yet on Long Island?"

First Published November 18, 2000, 4:41 p.m.