For a while, I’ve been pondering the renewal in interest of hand-made, artisan goods. It’s a trend that has filtered down into everyday life, including food. But reading recently that Hermés is continuing to thrive during these economically challenging times, and Goyard just opening a store in London, again made me wonder about issues of craft, quality and desirability at the top end of the market.

In the mind of the consumer, genuinely luxurious goods are increasingly perceived as such through the knowledge they have been carefully hand-crafted, with a great deal of time and dedication by only a small number of individuals and in limited quantities. With this process comes an inherent one-offness, a quirk, difference or personalisation that the next piece from the same workshop won’t have. And it’s this resulting combination of uniqueness and subtlety is what distinguishes them as ‘luxe’.

The hospitality business and network Rough Luxe sums up the current mood and goes a step further; “Rough Luxe… is a new way of looking at luxury as part of time and not just as an object of consumption. Luxury should be an enriching personal experience and not simply the ownership or utilisation of an expensive object.”

THE ROUGH LUXE HOTEL LONDON

In my own industry there are a number of companies that are offering hand-painted papers and interior products. Others are re-creating the hand-made feel using machine and digital prints. It’s great that new technologies mean that quality and beauty are more widely available but there is an enduring respect and desire for craft.

Posted in craft, design, handmade, interior design, trends, vintage, wallpaper

Some friends and I visited the major solo exhibition of Anish Kapoor last Thursday. It was a masterclass in the use of material, form, colour and surface texture in which immense power, movement, absolute stillness, stickiness, dryness, weight and delicacy are all juxtaposed.

The monumental work Svayambh, (from a Sanskrit word meaning ‘self-generated’) is a gliding, destructive piece made of red oil paint mixed with wax that moves slowly through the galleries across the entire breadth of Burlington House, mutilating itself as it goes.

Anish Kapoor Svayambh at RA

There was more drama and spectacle with ‘Shooting into the Corner’, a really exciting piece. We gathered round and waited for a few minutes for the countdown of the cannon firing. It really makes a booming noise and is sensationally anarchic in its splaying of crimson wax high up onto the plaster work of the Royal Academy ceiling – surely the old RA’s will be rocking in their graves! What’s great is that you really feel like you have seen a live piece of performance art even though the only performers are the person firing the cannon and the cannon itself.

Anish Kapoor Shooting Into The Corner

Here’s the cannon on YouTube.

After all the drama of these two pieces, I loved the quietness of ‘When I Am Pregnant’. A pregnant tummy form protrudes out from the wall, seemingly effortless as there are no joins in plaster work or signs of its making. The urge to touch it was almost overwhelming, just like when you see a friend who is pregnant there is always an urge to ‘cup the tum’. To me the piece really captures the essence of human form and makes it tangible. Similarly captivating were ‘Yellow’ and ‘Hive’ both for their scale and form which make you want to climb inside and inhabit them.

The exhibition is on until 11^th December so do try and see it if you’re in London.

Posted in art, colour, review

Elsewhere at Frieze here are the most memorable pieces I saw:

Conrad Shawcross’ ‘Slow Arc in a Cube II’ at the Victoria Miro stand. The transience of the patterns that it created were mesmerising and reminded one of the impermanence of imagery, ironic within an art fair.

Slow Arc Inside a Cube by Conran Shawcross

Interesting shadows on the wall.

A silver bird in a tray by Irish artist Dorothy Cross, show by the Frith Street Gallery. Equally transfixing.

Dorothy Cross Bird Bowl Frieze 2009

Raqib Shaw at White Cube  elements of traditional handpainting.

Shaw’s work combines a number of traditional techniques from applied arts and crafts such as fabric handpainting, ‘cloisonné’.

Raqib Shaw Freize 2009

Rudolf Stingel
He creates very textural, wallpaper-like images. His work looks like the canvas has been molded with a flock wallpaper or even block printed on top of plaster to give indentations / reliefs. Seeing him again at Frieze reminded me of his silver foil room installation at the Whitney in New York in 2007.

Posted in art, craft, review

With a lot of the more established galleries playing it safe and wheeling out the usual suspects, undoubtedly the most imaginative and thought-provoking work at Frieze this year was to be found within Frame – a section perhaps inspired by Zoo and even the organisation and space of which was a breath of fresh air. What stood out for me here was Alan Kane at Ancient & Modern.

The title ‘Collection of Mr. & Mrs. L.M. Kane’, and installation of his parent’s art collection within Frieze were a playful move. Their trinkets, and kitsch homely objects taking out of context and into a gallery setting and presented using the art world’s language, questioned and satirised its reverence of the ‘important’ collector.

Collection of Mr & Mrs Kane, Alan Kane 2009

Three original Figurines, Collection of Mr & Mrs Kane by Alan Kane 2009

Even if it’s mass-produced tat, we’re all collectors. Here’s my attempt!

Bird Tat

Group Tat

Posted in art, review

It’s not just part of my job, I’m fascinated by colours and what they might mean so I was especially intrigued by a story in this morning’s Times reporting some research conducted by Sandtex, the paint manufacturers. According to the survey ‘people with blue houses are more successful than those living in homes of any other colour’. In this case, ‘successful’ is denoted by salary, job title at work, number of holidays taken and help employed around the home. If you live in a green house, you’re the bottom of the pile. One of my favourite colours is pink which, apparently, puts me in the second to lowest position. Oh dear!

Here’s the article.

Posted in architecture, colour, interior design, trends

That’s how Suzy Menkes once described Missoni in the International Herald Tribune. Italy has a strong tradition of craftsmanship in small, family run companies that started off in fabric-making and combined this with their interest in colour and pattern: Etro, Zegna and Ratti are other good examples.

The other day, I went to see the exhibition ‘Missoni: Daring to be Different’ at the Esoterick in Islington and listened to a talk by Luca Missoni, son of the founders Ottavio and Rosita Missoni. What impresses me about Missoni is the intimacy and creativity that the company has maintained even now, over 50 years later and such a big, global success.

Ottavio and Rosita Missoni. Source wikipedia

Missoni rug Kalahari Viola. Source Missoni Rugs Blog.

Missoni rug 'Kong'. Source Missoni Rugs Blog

For me, the other key to Missoni’s special identity lies in its meaningful and ongoing relationship with art. Missoni takes a genuine interest in the work of artists – people like Giacomo Balla, Sonia Delaunay and Gino Severini whose use of colour have been so influential on the company are truly valued and embraced by Missoni. This goes well beyond tie-ins such as Louis Vuitton with Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami, deeper than Jurgen Teller photographing Cindy Sherman for Marc Jacobs’ adverts. And whilst the Missonis do collect they seem to draw this into their own work more than Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge who gathered objects and paintings for their home.

Posted in colour, design, fashion, pattern, review, textiles

We’ve just been at 100% Design then Decorex where I was chatting to Christopher Cole, son of the founder of Cole & Son and he too spoke of how, in the 1950s, very personal relationships with artists such as Lucienne Day and Eduardo Paolozzi were integral to the company’s identity. It’s the fruits of these collaborations that have endured, even though Cole & Son is no longer a small business. Similarly, the Palladio collections from Lightbown Aspinall and then Sanderson were so admired because of the involvement with artists and sense of craft.

Palladio Seven, Harlow. Designer Helen Dalby. Source Design Council Slide Collection, VADS

Palladio Seven, Sphere. Designer Deryck Healey & Rosemary Newson. Source Design Council Slide Collection, VADS

When your company is small, these relationships tend to be about celebrating the artists, their talent and the products that you make together.

Posted in design, interior design, pattern, wallpaper

I feel that when larger companies link up with artists and designers it becomes more about PR opportunities and boosting sales. Whether Debenhams or Topshop, Habitat or John Lewis, they’re all doing it. A few years ago when Graham & Brown undertook a project in conjunction with the Royal College of Art the results were really interesting and, I think, improved Graham and Brown’s status but I can’t help wondering whether it became yet another case of a marketing team jumping at the chance to use the word ‘designer’ and up the perception of creativity.

Of course, ‘designer’ ranges and products are so popular that they aren’t going to go away. But, there is a danger that we may suffer a designer overdose, especially in the case of particular names.

It seems that the same handful of designers, people like Marcel Wanders, Patricia Urquoia and Hella Jongerius are producing a wide range of products for the same four or five companies. It’s completely understandable for manufacturers to stick to these names as they’re a safe bet and will sell well but there is a downside – the resulting feeling of familiarity and homogeneity. The upside is that it becomes even easier for individuals and smaller companies to really stand out.

Posted in design, fashion, interior design, product design, trends

Companies like Cole & Son and Sanderson started life as family businesses, grew bigger and eventually were bought – a commonly recurring pattern of development. Often in the UK we complain that our manufacturing traditions are dying out and that we don’t nurture and retain our own talent. But I think in this country we are good at forming small, often family-run, innovative little companies, which do survive and make stuff in this country and we should congratulate ourselves on this more. And it’s these sorts of companies that are gaining more and more respect as the trend to question the big international chains and their mass-produced goods continues.

Channels, the furniture company and CTO Lighting have shown at 100% about as long as we have and they still continue to manufacture mostly in the UK, as do Timorous Beasties who showed at Designersblock. Naturally we’ve all felt economic ups and downs and that’s what is nice about being at a trade fair, the chance to catch up and find we’ve had similar experiences.

Looking around 100% and the London Design Festival it feels like there are lots of fantastic, small, family-based enterprises. In our corner of East London are Jason Bruges Studio and Forster Inc, a brother-and-sister companies, Foxall Associates, founded by two brothers and JAM, set up by Jamie Anley and his partner Astrid Zala – all of whom cover a range of creative disciplines and are becoming highly respected. Keeping it small and starting with family can really work.

Posted in design, interior design, wallpaper

I’m experimenting with shiny finishes, grainy metallics but instead of bling, I’m looking at how they exist alongside more muted colours such as dark grey, pinks, beige and camel. Have a look.

But, returning to bling for a moment..

Can you imaging landing on Earth from space, or being fast-forwarded from say Victorian times and seeing this? Aside from whether you would actually buy it, the affect is certainly dramatic, a Benz whizzed past me in Camden Town, I did a double take… was it mirrored or glass? I looked it up and found that there are loads of them!

Have a look on YouTube

Posted in botanical, design, pattern, product design, technology, trends, wallpaper

Yesterday I was having a trawl through our library and my hard drive, searching for something or other and whilst doing so, found so many objects, images and names that have inspired me I thought I’d jot some down for fun. In no particular order, here’s what I love…

Photography, Cyan types, William Henry Fox Talbot, pattern, Karl Blossfeldt, colour, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, fashion, pastels, black houses, Sonia Delaunay, wallpaper, gold, Josef & Anni Albers, Henri Matisee, Georgia O’ Keefe, Stella Ross–Craig, silver, Brick Lane and the Hugenot houses of Spitafields, paper-making, Paul Smith, black, Zika Ascher, Missoni, purple, Vitra, Ratti, blue, William Morris, Karel Martens, Lucienne Day, felt-making, The Albergs, The Eames, bronze, Rothko, Barbara Hepworth, Frida Khalo, Tracey Emin, Rachel Whiteread, yellow, Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, grey, weaving, Roger Hilton, Gary Hume, Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney, brown, Pierre-Joseph Redoute, neon, Palladio textile range, Terence Conran, Rogers House – Wimbledon, copper, Josef Frank, lino cut, the South Downs, Li Edelkoort, Jaime Hayon, Raoul Dufy, paper art, Katsuyo Kamo for Karl Lagerfeld, print-making, pink, Miuccia Prada, blossom, Tokyo, Brancusi, Wysteria

Posted in architecture, art, colour, design, fashion, pattern, textiles

“Beyond the crisis, we can see a real desire for creativity. People want a new modernity that is yet to be invented.” Jean-Philippe Nuel, interviewed at Maison & Objet 2008

As the world economy fluctuates, consumer behaviour and design trends point towards a new aesthetic, I’m trying to work out what’s next. In doing so, I began to reflect on the past. On the cusp of our tenth anniversary it struck me how the last decade has been so big for pattern. Every big name designer has embraced pattern especially after the 80’s-90’s which was dominated by white or black minimalism. Wallpaper was the first product that pushed pattern back into headlines –large retro prints became cool – large scale oversized prints digitally made or hand drawn were all put into repeats with the aid of our now taken for granted computers. Marry that with digital photography and printers and we went print crazy!

People then became more and more adventurous with pattern and colour (I’m trying to avoid name-checking Lawrence you-know-who-you-are) but in some walks of life maybe they are still tentative. I think part of my job as a designer is to encourage confidence etc. In the same way that some people are uncomfortable wearing bright colours or patterns but once they try them, they realise that they can be more fun, suit them better, I’m looking forward to another ten years of creating products that enable people to express their individuality, personality.

Posted in botanical, pattern, printing, technology, trends, wallpaper