Home interiors inspiration from the London Design Festival
Homes With A Heart showcased sustainable stylish household products at London Design Fair 2023.
So much to see, and so little time to do it, even when you board a flight from Cork to London at 6.05am and fly back home on the last flight that day, all in pursuit of the post-pandemic thrill of gorging on the latest in the world of design and interiors.
Tight on time, with so much to choose from at the ever-expanding London Design Festival, I stuck with my favourite event which always delivers, the London Design Fair, a hotspot for what’s new and accessible for interiors lovers, with the added excitement of it relaunching for the 2023 festival after a prolonged Covid recovery.
It was a show for our times with sustainability at its core, appropriately located in the ex-industrial old Truman Brewery building in the impossibly hip east London Shoreditch district, all powered in the spirit of sustainability by 100% renewable energy, the organisers say.
Chock-a-block with exhibitors, from international design studios to emerging talent, one of the standout exhibits was Homes With A Heart, a collaboration between Roddy Clarke, curator and founder of The Crossover project, an initiative tackling waste through circularity of materials, and Blue Patch, UK and Ireland’s sustainable business directory.
Always open to being seduced by room sets and the opportunity to indulge the impulse to cast an eye over the styling quality, Homes With A Heart was an immersive experience with all-important context so visitors can see exactly what it’s like to live with the curated collection of interior products. Participants of note included Denby with its timeless Kiln tableware collection in a misty blue-green hue.
Judy Archer’s textiles were another, fashioned into brave pops of colour, and Edward Bulmer Natural Paint with its warm shades and hues, carries serious eco-credentials.
Two hours of strolling the aisles later and a pattern of themes emerges: Primary colours, big and bold, used together with brazen confidence; deeply textured fabrics with alluring teddy bear appeal, crazy geometrics countered by voluptuously round shapes, and lighting that says sculpture and whimsy as well as functionality.
Also emerging were the demands of my grumbling stomach, satisfied by a cup of tea and pain au chocolat, enjoyed while listening to a talk by Hannah Craggs from the TrendBible future trends agency.
Her topic: Reimaging Living Spaces: The Hybridised Home and the Evolution of Indoor-Outdoor Living.
It wasn’t so much bringing the indoors outdoors but tracking a trend for modern householders investing in their outdoor spaces, identifying what Cragg calls, “three personas” when it comes to how they approach their investment.
First up, she says is, “The Sanctuary Seeker who wants to enjoy nature from indoors, which traditionally meant a conservatory.”
Think outdoor rooms and pavilions instead with all the quality of the living room experience.
Her second she calls Space Squeezer. “This persona embodies the ‘don’t move, improve’ attitude”, she says. “With changing lifestyles and expanding households, they require more considered use of space. Rather than moving, they seek to better utilise existing spaces making sure that every inch of home and garden is serving a purpose and creating solutions.”
And as a new sign of our times, her third persona is the Multi-Generational Household. “With grandparents moving into the family home,” she says, ”young adults remaining at home, priced out of the housing market, divorce dynamics, needing spaces to be together and private also, extending outdoor living spaces can help address these demands without the need for a bigger property.”
It’s sustainability meeting the financial crisis.
From there, always drawn to where a crowd is gathered at these sorts of events, as there’s usually something interesting afoot (champagne and posh nosh?) or someone interesting (high profile designer or celebrity paid to wander around?), this time a large clutch of people drew me to the Furniture of Ukraine stand.
Heartwarming to see the continuation of creativity from this nation, with a particularly joyful chair called Flock, its soft, sensual form incorporating natural materials and inviting tactility, best experienced by sitting on it.
Designed by Ukrainian Kateryna Sokolova for Noom, she says, “We wanted to create furniture that would become part of the family, intimate and beloved.” To which she adds rather poignantly, “The name Flock which means to move or come together, refers to the collection’s role as a peaceful oasis and the main meeting space within the home.”
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