Newsview: London's young craft firms open their doors

London’s younger craft firms are opening their doors for Clerkenwell Design Week, says Rose Martin.

Sat, 19 May, 2018 - 16:00

London’s younger craft firms are opening their doors for Clerkenwell Design Week, says Rose Martin.

WHILE the riot of middle-aged gardeners takes place at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, next week, a smaller, younger, but no less prestigious event takes place at Clerkenwell, London, an area that’s up-and-coming enough to still offer a cool, directional vibe to this exciting festival of ideas.

Offering the best of low-key start-up craft, design, and art-based businesses, it does have the imprimatur of the surrounding neighbourhood, which includes a host of architectural and design big-wigs — one street alone has

Zaha Hadid Architects on one end and Carl Hansen on the other. In a lot of cases, the workshops and showrooms open their doors to all, as part of this three-day festival, which usually ends with a big night-out.

Larder unit in Coldharbour Grey and birch ply.

A sociable and easy-going feast of furniture, fabric, fixtures, and fittings, you get to meet the makers at their various stands, talk to them, and run your hands over smooth glass, wood, or soft leather. Big-name suppliers turn up to the main tent, pitched in the centre of Spa Fields, an area surrounded by food stalls, street markets, gastropubs and converted Victorian warehouses. Usually, the design trails includes a number of installations for the event and it’s also usually sunny, which means a packed lunch in Spa Fields allows a handy break from walking around the various open houses and exhibits.

The most practical element of the tour, at least when it comes to furniture, is at St James Church and Crypt. The church housed Tom Dixon’s newest designs two years ago, while earnest young makers tend to congregate in the crypt below.

An ancient, weeping, children’s jail, with dark cells, is used for the more edgy, newcomer element of Design Week, where great creativity can be found amidst the very earnest, hardworking exhibitors. Art, craft, inspiration, commitment and creativity are all part of the mix. And that’s the joy of this festival — it has half the heft or the magnitude of London Design Week, in September, but this plucky little show, comprised of heartfelt work, is worth the price of the flight, if you fancy yourself as a creator, maker, or appreciator of quality design.

Now to the deets: We’ve mentioned Pluck here before. They offer that lovely, London mix of unpretentiousness and practicality, in a range of kitchens that will make you smile.

Pluck team: Leila, Stanley, Sam,Lloyd, George and Toby

The little team, who work out of Brixton and use simple materials to great effect, pride themselves on sustainable, no-nonsense beauty in their work.

So, for their new kitchen style, which will be launched next week, they’re working with plywood again in a kitchen that uses a coral pink tone, called Ritzy, (a lot of their work carries iconic, Brixton names) and it’s matched with beautifully-veined marble.

“The designs avoid gadgets, fads and fuss. Instead, clean lines, colour, and an accessible aesthetic are key,” says Pluck’s Leila Touwen.

“For our new model, we worked with Amy Powney, the creative director of luxury womenswear brand, ‘Mother of Pearl’, to make her dream kitchen a reality.

As you can see from the image above, the setting is a typical, London Victorian terraced house, whose internal space was reconfigured in the renovation to make way for a new garden extenstion.

“Powney and her husband started the design process with some definite choices,” says Leila. “The kitchen would have a concrete floor, marble worktops, and they wanted a monochrome feel.

It had to be a space where you could socialise whilst cooking, so, in keeping with the colour scheme, the main wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets is Pluck’s ‘Coldharbour Grey’ laminate.

And, in keeping with the firm’s style, the lower level cabinets have a simple, plain-wood, veneer finish and square finger holes, inset with contrasting laminate. Pluck’s coluour combinations are superb and while the elements in its kitchens are low-key, the colours sing.

“To bring some warmth to the design, the lower-level cabinets are London plane; the speckled, ‘snakeskin’ grain and tone of the wood are enhanced by individually arranging the hand-cut veneers,” Leila says. “The recessed handles use both these materials.

In this compact kitchen, clever use of space is key, so Pluck tailored a pantry for food storage.

“The island is designed for multiple uses, as it’s a place to prep food, sit at, and includes more storage,” says Touwen.

Pluck sourced the various elements, like the marble tops and appliances and designed the sensible, but beautifully-made pantry for the kitchen. The design will be on show in Clerkenwell next week.

The other major launch for the group will be a new range of colourful chairs, designed by Pluck and finished, like the kitchen, in birch ply laminate. The new Strut chairs will be pitched, ex Vat, at £150 sterling.