London Design Festival – Day 2 Continued

From the V&A Museum we headed to the nearby Brompton Design District. The Brompton Design District is a collaboration between leading design shops, exhibition spaces and institutions on and around the Brompton Road, London. Together with the major institutions of the V&A and the Royal College of Art & Design, the area has long been known for its contribution to art, design and education.

First stop: Andrew Martin

Interior design company Andrew Martin specializes in creating and supplying travel-inspired fabrics, wallpapers and designs using ideas sourced from cultures around the world.

Its ideology is to surprise, stimulate and entertain; its aim, to bring its multilayered, multicultural, easy living style to everybody who likes it.

A trip to the Walton Street showroom in London has been described as “like stepping in
to Aladdin’s Cave, with an almost bonkers mix of beautiful and enormous objects that
shouldn’t go together, yet somehow do.”

The whole showroom seemed never-ending and the fabrics and wallpapers were most incredible. The staff was also super friendly and very knowledgeable. My favorite part was a fun little interactive art installation called Dandelion. It was created by YOKE, an interactive design company from Denmark, in collaboration with London-based design agency Sennep and was part of the exhibition Decode: Digital Design Sensations at the V&A in 2009. I made a Vine but the sound is horrible so I’ve decided to share this video by Sennep.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/10904524]

2nd Stop: de Le Cuona

After Andrew Martin we marched over to de Le Cuona to get an unveiling of the new fabrics by owner and creator Bernie de Le Cuona.

Hailing originally from South Africa, Bernie’s textile collections pair understated English elegance with sub Saharan accents. de Le Cuona works with European craftsmen to create exquisitely understated woven linens with beautiful textural finishes, soft wool paisleys , liquid velvets, and cashmere sheers.

de Le Cuona is available worldwide via showrooms in London, New York and Moscow as well as online.

Fellow Blogtour companion and designer/blogger extraordinaire, Marilyn Russell, wrote a beautiful post on Bernie de Le Cuona back in May. It’s definitely worth a peek. {Read it Here}

3rd Stop: 100% Design
Continuing on we next stopped at 100% Design held at Earls Court Exhibition Centre in West London.

100% Design is still one of the largest and most comprehensive design destinations open during London Design Festival. This year the show focused on four industry sectors, each arranged around a central “hub” by different designers: Interiors by Talenthouse; Office by TILT; Kitchen & Bath by Aberrant Architecture; Eco Design & Build by Material Lab

At the center of the Kitchen and Bath hub, U.K. design studio Mette, in sponsorship with Gaggenau, set up the show’s restaurant and an inspiring Farm Kitchen exhibit which explored the integration of micro-agriculture within the kitchen experience. For the exhibit, Mette brought together a variety of designers and manufacturers, including Bulbo, Back to the Roots, Flip and Tumble, Modern Sprout, ConcreteWall and Auxano,

I wandered the kitchen and bath hub – happy to be in my element – exploring products from Dornbracht, Porcelanosa, Corian, Interior iD, Amberth, deVOL, Pando and Rotpunkt. Brass was definitely trending in the kitchen displays and as expected the bathroom displays were very streamlined and minimal. After my feet and shoulders gave out, I joined my BlogTour in the Bloggers Lounge for a beer.

4th Stop: Casa Brindisa

A short cab ride later we came to our final destination – dinner at Casa Brindisa. Casa Brindisa is a stylish Spanish Tapas restaurant located in South Kensington. This seemingly never-ending tapas dinner (I think we had 7 courses) was hosted by BlogTour sponsor Du Verre Hardware. I really enjoyed having co-founder Gina Lubin at my table and getting the opportunity to talk with her. I also have to note that the Rise pull made a really cute napkin ring.

We rolled ourselves into cabs at the conclusion of dinner and headed back to the citizenM Hotel where many of us gathered in the bar to discuss the events of the day. It was a long but fabulous day. Keep checking back for my next post on day 3.

October 2, 2013

London Design Festival – Day 2

DAY 2: Brompton Design District, 100% Design

We began day two at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), now in it’s 5th year as the London Design Festival’s central hub.

Our guides whisked us through the various exhibits hardly giving us much time to stop and take in the exhibits much less capture a good photograph.

In partnership with Swarovski, the London Design Festival commissioned 14 designers to each find a tiny detail within the V&A and highlight it using a Swarovski lens. The project, entitled God is in the Details, takes the famous phrase coined by legendary German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as a starting point to encourage the visitor to discover design features that may have otherwise been overlooked.

Canadian Designer Omer Arbel created the 28.280 installation, suspending 280 individual Bocci 28 series handblown glass lights from the museum’s cupola to create a giant chandelier. The installation plunges almost 100 feet from the ceiling and through a hole in the floor before emerging in the atrium of the gallery.

“28 Series is an exploration of a fabrication process which is part of our quest for specificity.
Instead of designing form itself, here the intent was to design a system that haphazardly
yields form, almost as a byproduct. ‘28’ pendants result from a complex glass blowing
technique whereby air pressure is intermittently introduced into and then removed from a
glass matrix which is intermittently heated and then rapidly cooled.

The result is a distorted spherical shape with a composed collection of inner shapes, one of
which is made of opaque milk glass and houses a light source.”

Other notable exhibits included V&A Designer in residence Julia Lohmann‘s installation of a huge sculpture made of seaweed, a white noise voice remixer created by Yuri Suzuki, a walk-through exhibit of 5,000 paper windmills created by Najla El Zein called The Wind Portal and The Dinner Party still life set up by Scholten and Baijings where visitors look upon a dinner scene and hear music playing softly in the background created by the objects before them by composers Moritz Gabe and Henning Grambow.

Perhaps the most breathtaking exhibit at the V&A is the Pearls exhibit running through January 19th in collaboration with the Qatar Museums Authority.

This lavish display explores the history of pearls from the early Roman Empire through to the present day and showcases some of the most exquisite pearl jewelery including the famous Mikimoto pearl necklace worn by Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor’s Bulgari pearl-drop pendant earrings.

To be Continued…Brompton Design District on BlogTourLondon

September 30, 2013

London Design Festival 2013

The London Design Festival celebrated its eleventh birthday September 14-22nd with over 300 different shows and events over nine days. It was impossible for BlogTour London to cover it all but we managed to cover a fair amount of ground.

DAY 1: designJunction

This year designjunction returned to the 1960s Postal Sorting Office in Central London where a cutting-edge line-up of renowned international brands and emerging design talent were presented across three floors of the impressive 120,000 sq ft venue. New for 2013 was lightjunction, London’s first trade fair dedicated to very best in decorative lighting.

We began the show with an introduction to the much anticipated UK debut of Kartell by Laufen. I may have to give them their own post later just to discuss their revolutionary SaphirKeramik.

I think this quote from the award-winning designers Ludovica+Roberto Palomba sums up the collection best.

“An architectural project, which speaks a new language. Innovative, rich in emotion,
transparency and colour. The Kartell by Laufen bathroom is the synthesis of the work
we have done in recent years in the world of the bathroom and represents an important
step forward in this sector”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuGDdLFbPEY

After exploring the show we met up again for Dinner hosted by Laufen at Jamie Oliver’s pop-up restaurant Barbecoa in partnership with Modus furniture. Barbecoa is renowned for its flame inspired cooking and widely praised for their original and smoked flavored dishes. I found out the menu was specifically created for the show – their first-ever pop-up venture. We dined on signature favorites of pit-smoked pulled pork sandwiches, smoked short ribs with chipotle tomato salsa, loaded BLT sandwiches with home smoked porchetta and a delicious chicken cobb salad. There were also the most incredible desserts shared around the table.

During our dinner we met some of the members from the Visa Luxury Hotel Collection, designjunction’s main sponsor. The Visa Luxury Hotel Collection is a premium travel program enabling Visa Premium cardholders to find, book and enjoy exclusive benefits at more than 900 prestigious properties around the world — from boutique to celebrated designer hotels.

Little did I realize at the time, but designjunction established a lighting theme for me during the Festival.

More Highlights

September 28, 2013

55 Downing Street

Lamps Plus is one of America’s largest lighting retailers and a sponsor of the BlogTour London Trip I recently went on. For more than 30 years they have been building their business to offer nationwide customers the largest collection of function and decorative lighting fixtures, accessories, furniture and home decor. The Lamps Plus collection of websites includes Lighting Luxury Style, Builders Discount Lighting, Lamps Plus Open Box and 55 Downing Street.

If you are unfamiliar with 55 Downing Street, it launched in May 2012 in the flash sales arena.

“Over the last year, we’ve discovered what designs truly excite our customers most. So we
now scour all corners of the globe to source the latest styles,” says Manja Swanson, Chief
Creative Officer for 55 Downing Street and Lamps Plus. “From handmade Indian rugs
and pillows to furniture produced right here in California, each design on 55 Downing
Street has been hand selected on the basis of quality, value and, of course, style.”

Starting early next year, 55 Downing Street will launch the first of three exclusive house brands. The brands – Dahlia Studios, Chateau Lux and Cinnabar Road – will feature artisan soft lines, continental inspired furniture, and globally-inspired imported furnishings, respectively.

The new brand offering will coincide with a re-launch of 55DowningStreet.com. The new site will feature a new blog team and contributors to offer readers a fresh voice and insights into the latest design trends.

I’ve paired items from the Lamps Plus website and 55 Downing Street with images from the London Design Festival to demonstrate how trendy their product selection actually is.

Cox London at Decorex | Irondale Helena Reclaimed Bookcase

Brokis Pendants at Design Junction | Possini Euro Engels

Paris Wakefield Additions at Tent London | Annabelle Modern Flame Chair and Flame Zig Zag lamp

Foldability at DesignJunction | Possini Euro White Cloud Pendant

Tony Miles Designs at DesignJunction | Telestar Lamp

(Lamps Plus is a sponsor for BlogTour London 2013, but the views and opinions expressed on this blog are mine, and I will be honest in what I share.)