Christmas Pop-Ups

I've been enjoying the posters advertising late night Christmas shopping and pop-up shops. There is so much going on over the next few weeks, check out: retro finds and up-cycled goods at Brixton East Pop-Up Shop, hipster East London stores get together for the Shoreditch Christmas Triangle, seek out original design-led objets at FAO Pop-Up Shop, festive decorations at The Original Pop-Up Shop, British boutique brands in The Christmas Arcade at Somerset House. Enjoy.

Indie of the Week #2: Quill London

Christmas card season is upon us... so what better time to celebrate an independent store dedicated to stationery. Quill London is an online-only endeavour that has quickly gained a cult following (it only launched this year) among fans of pen and paper, of which it turns out there are many. 

Who are you? Lucy Edmonds. I run Quill London.

Where can we find you? www.quilllondon.com; @QuillLondon; Facebook.com/QuillLondon

Describe your store in five words: Super stylish stationery & paper goods. Is that cheating?!

What makes you different? I started Quill because I felt there was a big gap between high street stationers and super high-end brands. Quill offers something in between: style-led pieces mostly from small studios and independent brands, offering good quality without the Bond Street prices.

How you decide what makes the cut? I would be lying if I said I didn't choose things I personally love. That's a pretty important test. I try to source from designers that don't have much representation in the UK so that we offer something British customers may not have discovered before. 

What were you doing before you did this? I used to work at a small start-up business that produced swedish-designed homeware, and wholesaled to some great UK retailers. I learnt so much during my four years there, and particularly from the company's owners - two remarkable businesswomen - and it gave me the know-how to start something for myself.

If you were starting again what advice would you give yourself? Do it sooner. I spent a little too long procrastinating and suffering crises of confidence. It wasted so much time! 

What are you most proud of? I am proud of our logo. It was created by James Bowskill, a wonderful designer who is based in Tokyo. He created something I would never have come up with myself but that I absolutely love and will never get bored of. It always gets commented on when I give people my card.

Do you have a favourite thing in the store right now? So many! Our calendar print called 'The Sun, It Shines' by Spring Once More is striking and so cleverly designed. I adore everything that Sarah and Juliette at Brown Paper create. I can't help but love the PS'Ikat notebook by Christian Lacroix Papier with a secret crazy skeleton hidden inside the pages. I also love the Maison Martin Margiela quill biros: the perfect gift for someone that has everything.

What's hot for 2013? I think as we come into the spring time, our handmade tissue paper pompoms will really come into their own. They're great for adding a bit of colour and frivolity to interiors, parties, weddings, picnics - anything, really!

Monday blues-buster

I snapped this over the weekend, reminded me a bit of palm trees and warmer times.

V&A Furniture Gallery

What's it all about then? It's the first time the V&A has ever had a gallery devoted to furniture, despite the fact they've been collecting it for 150 years. Almost everything came from their stores, around 90%, and many of the items have not actually been seen in living memory.

So why now? Their research shows that people are fascinated by the way things are made so the collection is built around techniques and decoration - rather than say, big name designers. It's essentially the way furniture has been made in the West from around 1400 to now.

What will I see? The displays devoted to 'making' show variety (joinery, lacquer, veneering, inlay, gilding, turning, injection moulding) but also continuity (chairs and wardrobes always popular). And lots of juxtaposition. Yep, there is an Ikea bookcase standing just a breath away from a medieval book chest. 

Do I need to know my Jacobsen from my Jacobean? It's not a gallery of famous names, there's not masses of Modernism, it's more about the human story behind the furniture. There are some extraordinary pieces such as the Surrealist wardrobe and the ornate 17th century Parisian 'Marie de Medici' cabinet (both pictured).

Who's it for? Designers, makers, collectors, students, anyone who is interested in furniture and the way it is made - and those adventurous enough to make it up to the sixth floor. It's next to the Ceramics Gallery which is amazing, if you've never been: wall-to-wall tableware.

Look but don't touch? Keep away from the furniture or you'll set the alarms off. But there are digital labels to swipe through and interactive tables where you can touch the materials and information about them flashes up on screen. Danger of learning something: quite high.

V&A Furniture Gallery, opens 1st December.

Picture captions, clockwise from top left: The V&A's Furniture Gallery was designed by NORD Architecture; Plywood armchairs by Marcel Breuer (left, 1936) and Josef Hoffmann (right, 1908) with spotted 'Child Chair' (1964) made from flat-packed cardboard; 17th Century Parisian 'Marie de Medici' cabinet with ebony veneer and gilded brass plaques depicting scenes from a romantic poem; 20th Century hits: Ron Arad's 'Bookworm', Jasper Morrison's 'Ply-Chair' and Carlo Mollino's 'Arabesque' table; Wardrobe painted in 1939 by Eugene Berman, a Russian painter, stage designer and Surrealist; Decorative 19th Century armchair from India sits beneath Joe Colombo's 1963 Armchair.

Indie of the Week #1: Lavender Room

I'm starting a new series called 'Indie of the week' celebrating the best independent stores around. These places sell interesting and varied collections of design-related things you don't see everywhere else. They may support young or local designers or be great at finding unique things from around the world. By thinking a little more creatively about what they stock they are fighting the bland homogenisation of so much of the high street. And since I'm down with the realities of modern life, online only stores count too, because a beautiful and easy to use website is just as delightful an encounter in cyberspace.

Do you you have a favourite store?  I'd love to hear from you.

I was in Brighton recently and stumbled across Lavender Room, a little gem in the North Laine which sells a feminine, but not too girlie, collection of homes stuff, clothes and jewellery. It had a very personal feel, the kind of place where if you like one thing, chances are you'll like the rest - and it smelled lovely too.

Who are you? We are Jenny Atherton & Nicky Sanderson and we run Lavender Room.

How can we find you? Lavender Room, 16 Bond Street, Brighton BN1 1RD (01273 220380); facebook.com/LavenderRoom; twitter.com/lavenderroom; pinterest.com/lavenderroom

Describe your store in five words:  Boutique, fashion, home accessories, gifts.

What makes you different?  Our lifestyle concept of fashion and home accessories under one roof

How do you decide what makes the cut? If we love it, then it's in.

What were you doing before you did this? Jenny: I was a fashion buyer for high street retailers, Nicky sourced and sold products to the high street retailers.

If you were starting again, what advice would you give yourself? Always keep a tight reign on financial planning and cash flow.

What are you most proud of? Hearing customers say that we are their favourite shop. And reaching almost ten years in business.

Do you have a favourite thing in the store right now? Our Woop Studios artwork, especially "A Murmuration of Starlings", very Brighton.

What's hot for 2013? Our ten year anniversary in March, we'll be planning a party to celebrate.

Monday blues-buster

Somebody somewhere is happier because these exist. Likewise, the reverse is also probably true.

Creativity at Work

It's here... the book behind the blog, and what a lush tome it is.

'Creativity at Work' is a collection interviews with a select group of designers, artists and all-round creative types by New Yorker Heather Clawson. Since 2007 Clawson has been documenting life at the sharp end of fashion and style, in both words and pictures, on her successful blog Habitually Chic.

The people included in her book work in the kind of spacious, colourful and effortlessly-chic furnished offices which may make you weep into your cornflakes; or hopefully, once you've cleaned up the mess, inspire you. As she says herself in the introduction: "it's never too late to make a change... Julia Child [life made into a film starring Meryl Streep] didn't start cooking until she was 36".

Creativity at Work, by Heather Clawson: a book to inspire you to get creative

Miranda Brooks, landscape designer, at work

The sleek corner office of Jenna Lyons, Creative Director, J.Crew

Stick your beliefs on the wall like Jonathan Adler, Potter and Designer

Money Talks

One of the striking artworks made up of hundreds of painstakingly folded bank notes (US dollars in green, Chinese yuan in red) at the opening night of: 'The Great Swindle' by Columbian artist Santiago Montoya, at The Halcyon Gallery, New Bond Street, London. Bold, graphic images with a dash of political propaganda.

Hello! Bean Bags

Patricia Urquiola sits on the laid back Hosu chair she designed for Coalesse

“In the connected world work and life are merging” says the strap-line on a new range of furniture by San-Francisco based design company Coalesse.

To anyone who has found themselves responding to a work email on their phone at 6:30am this won't be a huge surprise. We take our work with us wherever we go; it stretches out across the whole day and is done wherever and whenever required. 

The challenge is to find the balance between this mind-expanding new freedom - where you're capable of snapping into work mode at any moment - and the inevitable encroachment on your personal life. The new buzz word for this is 'toggling', or taking a mental time-out, often by dipping into something else techy. 

With many people working in kitchens, on sofas, in coffee shops, and in more social and collaborative ways, it's bye bye formal meeting room - hello bean bags. 

The Hosu lounge chair was designed by Patricia Urquiola with comfort in mind. Settle back and scroll through your phone, tablet or laptop - note that it also converts to a chaise so you can put your feet up. 

The Hosu chair seat pad flips over to convert into a foot rest. And... relax.

The Great Recovery

The Great Recovery : a thought-provoking project with The RSA

When 90% of the products we buy end up as waste within six months, it's key that disassembly is part of the design brief", says Sophie Thomas, of The RSA, as the camera pans over an image of an overflowing recycling facility (aka product graveyard).

In this seven minute video she sets out to explain why we need to work together towards a more sustainable future; where we don't throw precious materials away just because we can't get the condenser off the back of a fridge. It's all about the 'circular economy' peeps.

Thanks to @chrishaughton for sharing this on Twitter.

Rethink: The Way You Live

You can grow your own in the city.

I've put this new book down on my Christmas list as I reckon I'll need the incentive of a New Year's resolution if I'm going to take action. It's called 'Rethink: The Way You Live', by Aussie design writer (and Snoop blogger) Amanda Talbot. 

Far from being a traditional flick-through coffee table interiors book (don't get me wrong, still a big fan of those) this is one that's grounded in alternative ideas about how you can live differently in your home. 

You may already be recycling your own weight in Tetra-Paks every year, but are there more creative ways to incorporate sustainability into everyday life? Talbot has scoured the globe for trendsters who are pushing the boundaries and rethinking the way they live. 

Whether my own veg patch gets off the ground in 2013 remains to be seen. 

Rethink: The Way  You Live, book cover

Jolly Gingers

Here's a simple way to cheer up someone's day... send them some Jolly Gingers from Biscuiteers in the post. Funny, delicious and beautifully packaged. Thanks Sal.

 batty ginger

ski ginger

gingerman

The Savoy

I had the joy, pleasure and privilege of spending a night at The Savoy last weekend. The landmark Edwardian and Art Deco hotel has re-opened after a multi-million pound renovation, and I can report that it is looking truly splendid. As the favoured haunt of Hollywood legends such as Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe and Katharine Hepburn, it oozes old fashioned glamour and style. Drop in for a drink in the moody, low-lit Beaufort Bar, or just gawp at the striking and artfully arranged interiors.

The Strand's most glamorous resident

Upper Thames Foyer

 Upper Thames Foyer

 Art Deco suite sitting room

 River restaurant

 Gondoliers (meeting rooms)

View of The Thames and London Eye 

Marlene Dietrich had her own suite at the hotel. 

She always had a dozen pink roses and a bottle of Dom Perignon waiting in her room. Like her style.

Another Country

There is something very soothing about this furniture designed by Another Country. 

It's made of rustic materials (unvarnished oak and ash) and has a country feel to it, but it is definitely very modern too. Perhaps unsurprisingly the designs are inspired by Scandinavian simplicity, English country kitchens, the Shaker movement and Japanese woodwork which when thrown together create something everyone could live with.

Calm, discreet, un-showy: they could be the perfect flatmate. 

All pictures from Another Country

Pitfield London

At Decorex last week I heard a talk by Shaun Clarkson and Paul Brewster, the slick duo behind lifestyle shop/cafe Pitfield in Shoreditch. It was fascinating to hear how quickly they have established their brand despite only opening last December.

Pitfield sells a range of colourful and eclectic hipster-happy old things alongside new things with a cafe, deli and exhibition space to boot. You'll find sixties chairs in new fabrics, ceramics, candles, vintage lamp bases with new shades, displays of old brushes and feather dusters; in essence it's a very carefully considered (in order to look random) assortment of things you probably can't afford. And it could easily moonlight as a set on an episode of Portlandia.

To get something like this off the ground it certainly helps if you've spent twenty years in the trade. Clarkson is an established interior designer (with offices upstairs) and the man behind nineties style bars Pop and 10 Rooms, and gastro pub The Albion, who pretty much knows what we want before we want it, and Brewster is a textile designer. 

But despite the duo's obvious ease in collating a kick-ass collection of designer ephemera it hasn't all gone as expected. The big hit has been the cafe - a late addition to the master plan - which took over to the point where they had to get someone else in to run it. Croissants are now baked on site from 5am and they took the Pitfield brand on the road by doing a pop-up cafe at Tent London and served 8,000 coffees in four days. 

The future may lie in the cafe, but at least the iittala cups they use are on sale in the shop.

Tent London 2012

Met some interesting people and saw a lot of interesting things last Friday at Tent London located in the Old Truman Brewery on Hanbury Street, E1.

 Watched a demo of the cleverly expandable Seer table, see the short video. Tried and tested in a small London kitchen, I'm assured.  

Couldn't resist these giant knitted chairs by Claire Anne O'Brien

... or these playful up-scaled textiles at Melanie Porter

And these knitted fibre optics by Fay McCaul looked great under glass. Very cool.

Young design studio Jailmake turned their stand into their workspace for the duration of the event. Smart thinking. 

Box shelves from Belle and Bespoke suggested neat ways for displaying collections instead of hanging a picture. It's the modern mantelpiece.

Or how about a made to measure foam seat molded to the shape of your very own behind. Martijn Rigters' Foam Party drew crowds as willing participants sat still for for 15 minutes while the foam set.

Award for best sign went to Mashiko Pottery Japan

Downstairs at the Superbrands exhibition the vibe was a bit high end architectural; the chairs were a bit radical.

... and so were the lights.

Outside on Hanbury Street was some gritty urban scrawl.

Report: London Design Festival 2012

Uplifting blue skies and sunshine kicked off this year's London Design Festival, here's what I saw.

A novel use for old traffic cones: the striking entrance to the V&A turned out to be part of the Thomas Heatherwick exhibition

One of the ten benches in the V&A courtyard to mark ten years of the London Design Festival. This one (above) is called 'Bench of Plates', by architect Amanda Levete's studio AL_L, and was inspired by the V&A's ceramic collection.

Out of The Woods talk at the V&A

While at the V&A, I attended a talk which posed the timely question: does the world need another chair?  'Out of The Woods: Adventures of 12 Hardwood Chairs' is an interesting collaboration between RCA students (the designers), Benchmark Furniture (the manufacturers) and American Hardwood Export Council (who provided the wood).

The students spent a week down at the Benchmark factory where they produced 12 unique chairs, currently on display at the V&A, with sustainability as a core requirement. Each chair was made using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study which measures the environmental impact of the hardwood from the moment it is chopped down through to the end of its life. So the answer to the question seemed to be: yes, to more chairs, if they are made this way.

I spoke to Sean Sutcliffe, co-founder with Sir Terence Conran of Benchmark, and he said this: "Life Cycle Assessment will be something that ten years from now everyone will talk about. We won't have VAT, we'll have Life Cycle Tax. You won't pay tax on what something costs in money, you'll pay tax on what something costs in real terms”.

Serious global-warming-what-does-the-future-hold-stuff aside... the students' designs were genuinely good.

'Tree Furniture', by RCA student Anton Alvarez is made from a single untreated Cherry wood log to look as if it was carved where it was felled (photo by Petr Krejci)

It was made with just three cuts (photo by Petr Krejci)

Alvarez intended his seat to be something people might chance upon while walking in the woods (photo by Mark O'Flaherty)

'Leftovers Chair', by fellow RCA student Lauren Davies, was inspired by food and cooking, and made from a variety of hardwoods. It has 'smoked' Hickory legs, the seat is 'pickled' in vinegar and Maple spindles 'flavoured' with fruit essences - for a  literal take on a classic Windsor kitchen chair.

Round the corner in the Brompton Design District there was a riot of colour set against black walls at quirky upholsterers Squint

Over at Designjunction held in a huge former sorting office on New Oxford Street, W1 there was some highly original re-use and recycling going on with this very fine anchor, the bulbs are made of glass door handles, by Solid ID

The three-floor warehouse space was the ideal backdrop for a design show. Fifty vintage Chair 69s by Alvar Aalto (rescued from a building in Finland) in use and for sale at the 2nd Cycle Cafe by Artek.

This one's for charity: Joy of Living Part 2 (as previously featured on this blog) is this year raising money for Maggie's Centres with customised furniture donated by designers.

Other interesting stands at Designjunction included: elegant furniture at Another Country and Bethan Gray both available at new shopping site FAO, interiors at Nordic Elements, old school cooking at Falcon Enamelware, posters at Outline Editions and random ephemera at Theo.

London Design Festival 2012

The London Design Festival is back for another year and it opens tomorrow.

But what does this mean for you and me? With over 200 events spread over nine days it is the largest event of its kind in Europe and many of the events are open to the public, for free.

If you like new things and you want to see what's going on in the world of design - ie the stuff that surrounds you - then go see something. There are several key venues, or hubs, across the capital and these are the ones I plan to check out next week.

Central: Designjunction

Designjunction takes place in an old sorting office on New Oxford Street over three floors in a 120,000 sq. ft space and will host international brands, pop-up shops, temporary restaurants, working flash factories, cutting-edge labels. It sounds like it will a buzzing hive of activity; I'll definitely be taking my camera.

East: Tent London and Super Brands

With a sleek new entrance on Hanbury Street these two events are located on separate floors in the same building. The clue is in the name as to the differences between them: Super Brands does not undersell itself in the title, this is where you'll find the big international players on the design scene. Whereas Tent London offers temporary shelter to established independent brands and new international finds. There will be a LOT to look at.

West: V&A and Brompton Design District

Once again the V&A will be the official hub of the London Design Festival and is hosting several exhibitions including Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary (as in Thomas 'Olympic cauldron' Heatherwick) and the sculptural and digital installation (pictured above) called Prism by Keiichi Matsuda, both of which I really want to see. Around the corner is the Brompton Design District - the collective name for shops located around Brompton Road - which will all be open and active during the festival.

For further reading on the festival I suggest these links: Barbara Chandler for Homes & Property, The Independent and The FT

Trend Translation

Predicting the future without a crystal ball

I received an interesting document recently; it was a trend report from this year's Milan Furniture Fair by the Research, Trends and Strategy team at design company Seymour Powell.

While I'm not one for horoscopes or palm readers, I do find myself strangely fascinated by the people whose job it is to predict future trends. The ones who take take the cultural temperature and exclaim: THIS is what you will be thinking and doing and wearing and buying in the months to come.

The two women behind the report are Mariel Brown and Karen Rosenkranz. I imagine this glamorous duo working in a sleek, large-windowed office with mind-blowing mood boards and spinning-around chairs, shouting buzz words at each other.

These zeitgeisty pearls are then used in marketing and branding campaigns for the company's consumer clients. Here's what they had to say about design right now: 

Now I guess we just wait a year to see if they were right...

New York style

Kate Spade at John Lewis: a good match. 

This collection of tableware from the purveyors of Upper East Side WASP-chic Kate Spade New York is the latest in a line of great brand hook-ups from the nation's favourite department store. Other notable hits include Rob Ryan and the unstoppable Orla Kiely.