Visitors to the four-day Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antiques show, which opens Saturday, will likely find plenty of items to divert their attention among the 175-plus vendor stalls set up in the Palm Beach County Convention Center.

But not all of the art and antiques will be displayed inside the booths. Instead, some have been pulled from the stock of the exhibiting vendors by well-known interior decorators at five design firms. They’re led by Palm Beach designer Scott Snyder, whose namesake company also has an office in New York City.

They have created room settings that showcase the items and, perhaps, offer a few design lessons on using antiques at home. In addition to Snyder, the participants include Geoffrey Bradfield, Campion Platt and Bruce Bierman as well as Jim Aman and his partner, John Meeks.

For his own vignette, Snyder has envisioned a “proper” living room filled with notable objects and furnishings culled from the shows dealers, who have traveled to the convention center from across the Atlantic and the country — and even from across town, he says.

“I’m using 18th- and 19th-century antiques from Cedric DuPont Antiques in West Palm Beach, mixing them with contemporary mid-century upholstered pieces and modern 20th-century art,” Snyder says. “It’s a juxtaposition of the late 1800s and 2012, which is very much the mood of the show, as well as the mood of today.”

He also chose upholstered furniture of his own design, and art from Cavalier Galleries Inc. of Greenwich, Conn.

“I love antiquity mixed with modernity,” he says. “It’s brilliant. You just have to know when to stop and where to start.”

Snyder’s choice of the display’s color palette — yellow and gray — wasn’t incidental, by the way. Those hues are the signature colors of the Hope for Depression Research Foundation, the show’s new nonprofit charitable partner, which replaced the Historical Society of Palm Beach County, the event’s beneficiary for the past several years.

Creative connection

Hope for Depression was founded in 2006 by Palm Beacher Audrey Gruss, one of Snyder’s longtime clients and a friend. The organization funds research into the cause of depression, its effects and possible cures and medications.

Gruss was instrumental in establishing the partnership between the charity and the show and sale, says Scott Diament, who co-founded the event nine years ago. She also helped secure Snyder’s participation in heading up the room displays, which have been christened the Hope Designer Showcase.

“I have a passion for art, especially decorative art,” Gruss says, adding that research into depression has revealed a linked to the art and design community. As a result, she says, she saw a certain synergy to partnering her foundation with the show.

“Almost 20 percent of people in professions that use their creativity are susceptible to some form of emotional imbalance,” she says, adding that 20 million Americans suffer from depression.

“Audrey has been to (antiques) shows all over the world, and she was helpful in involving some top dealers and getting the word out,” Diament says.

Open to anyone attending the show, the designers’ showcase is also a centerpiece of the inaugural Hope Art-of-Design Weekend, a series of private events for the charity’s donors that include a high tea hosted by Gruss and private guided tours of the show. It all came out of a brainstorming dinner session with Gruss, Snyder says.

Designers’ choices

The room vignettes are similar to ones that Snyder and other designers created several years ago for a different event — the now renamed American International Fine Art Fair, which closed Sunday at the convention center.

Adding a designer’s showcase to the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show fulfills one of Diament’s longtime goals for his event, he explains.

“That’s something we’ve wanted to do for a long time,” says Diament, who co-founded the show with partner Kris Charamonde. Palm Beach Show Group’s other co-founder, Rob Samuels, has since left the organization to concentrate on his jewelry business.

Snyder has designed a pavilion on the exhibit floor that will house the five vignettes. Decorator Platt’s salon, for instance, will feature Art Deco furniture from Valerio Antiques, a New York City-based company that also provided pieces for other vignettes.

“My own style tends toward modern,” says New York-based Platt, who with his wife, Tatiana, owns an award-winning vacation home in Palm Beach. “Typically, I like to use natural woods, metal and steel. A beautiful screen creates height and proportion. My rooms are always meant to be comfortable with multiple seating areas, so that it feels active.”

Geoffrey Bradfield of Geoffrey Bradfield Inc. in New York City, meanwhile, has created a sophisticated-and-glamorous room setting that he envisioned as an international art dealer’s lair, he says.

“As a devoted champion of the Art Deco movement, it’s a pleasure to incorporate furnishings from Valerio Antiques,” Bradfield says. “I’m using a fine desk from the 1930s, a pair of armchairs, coffee table, desk chairs of the period and an ultra-chic vertical book case in matching dark wood.”

For art, he’s including a portfolio of John “Crash” Matos’ paintings from Art Link International of Lake Worth, as well as a massive fossil mural from Eostone of Miami for a focal point and Flywheelsonata, a sculpture by John Chamberlain from Dean Borghi Fine Art of New York City.

Grounding the setting is a carpet Bradfield designed as a part of his new collection for Stark Carpet.

“I named it Mr. Willoughby, after the young man who rules my life, my 5-year-old Yorkshire terrier,” the decorator says.

Aman of Jim Aman + John Meeks in New York City says he is not seeking an over-the-top reaction from those who view his firm’s foyer vignette.

“We do the transitional look. Our color palettes are very subdued and we are about great art and fine antiques, which is never trendy and does not go in and out of style. So that’s what we are doing for this show,” Aman says.

For his foyer, he’s including Jules Leleu chairs and an Andre Arbus console from New York City’s Primavera Gallery. He also chose sculptures by Donald De Lue and Giacometti Diego from Childs Gallery of Boston and art by Clifford Smith and Wojciech Fangor from Gavin Spanierman Ltd. of New York City.

‘The best medicine’

New York City-based Bruce Bierman of Bruce Bierman Design says he agreed to do a vignette as long as he could get people to laugh. The title of his room is “Happiness Is.”

“This is about hope for depression, and laughter is the best medicine,” he says. “I was sitting in my studio with two designers, who happen to be women, and I asked them what would make them happy, and they said new shoes. So, we are doing a woman’s dressing room. Saks (Fifth Avenue) was kind enough to give us many pairs of shoes.

“We are using wonderful furniture and art from Valerio, Borghi Fine Art (of Engelwood, N.J.) and The Silver Fund (of San Francisco) — and all the accessories will be women’s shoes.”