Day 2 saw us visit the eagerly anticipated Design Junction show at the Old Sorting Office on New Oxford Street, and it was definitely worth the trip. Harking back to the Design festivals of old, this industrial setup offered a mix of more established brands with up and coming international and British brands and was the highlight of the festival. Spanning three floors, the exhibition was a chance for smaller British companies, like our friends at NaughtOne to mix in with some of the design worlds most established brands with Carl Hansen & Son putting on a fantastic stand focused around their best selling CH24 - Wishbone Chair. The stand was built up from panels made up from their papercord seat structure and featured and impressive and colourful display of the CH24 in all its available finishes, once again showing how flexible and on trend this classic piece has remained. The stand also featured a working display of the procedure used to create the wrapped papercord seat by a well practiced Danish factory worker. Also exhibiting were Relay design agency, showing off their Orsjo and Mitab brands. Orsjo has gone from strength to strength in the hotel and contract sector and additions such as the Lean light and Baklava have bought them to the attention of the press in the domestic market. Slightly industrial with fine detailing, the company has a unique style.
The Design Junction exhibition was a great place to see younger international brands and there was a couple that really shone through. Young Czech based lighting company, Brokis, showed a beautiful collection of smoked blown glass light fittings with copper reflectors that looked incredible as both stand alone pieces and grouped in a family. We also came across a Chilean company making a range of simple but cleverly detailed, turned wood vessels of all shapes and sizes, highlighted with lids made from copper and brass. The lower floor of the Sorting office was dedicated to accessory brands and independent retail stands selling everything from pencils to paintings in a market style environment. One particular brand of note in this area were the growing product design company, Native Union. We started working with Native union about 6 months ago after seeing their incredible Switch bluetooth speaker, taking a small range of the product into our Manchester showroom which very quickly sold out. The show saw the brand launch the Switch in a range of new colours, along with accesories and a range of phone and tablet cases. Native Union will very soon be available through the website.
One of the things that we really wanted to check out was the Muller Van Severen exhibition at Viaduct. Having been a fan of his fathers (Martin Van Severen) work for many years, we were intrigued by the simple, raw structures we had seen so much about in the design press over the past few months. The result is a very understated, graphic collection of furniture produced by hand in a small workshop at the couples home. Beautifully proportioned with honest materials, the range is a must see for any hardened purist.
Around the corner was one of our favorite brands, Moroso. Exhibiting at their Roseberry Avenue showroom which they share with Flos, their combination of off the wall individual pieces and incredible upholstery are one of the main reasons we love them so much. Although launching nothing new at LDF, the way that Moroso put together there products and spaces always make them worth a trip and given that it is always one of the busiest stands at the Salone Del Mobile, its nice to see the products installed in a more domestic environment. The main talking point from the Flos part of the showroom was the incredible Aim pendant light installation. Designed by the Bouroullecs and released in Milan this year, Aim is a product that incorporates the looped flex we see used so much in interior design installations in a more contemporary aesthetic. Available in a 1, 3 and 5 drop pendant, it works great over a dining table as well as commercial interiors.
The last stop on our visit was the Vitra Showroom in Clerkenwell, having just become Vitra dealers and going to the amazing campus, detailed in a previous post we wanted to go and see the showroom again and see how they are displaying their wares. The showroom was well set out in a domestic manner, featuring well put together room sets and reinforcing Vitra’s continued focus on the home market. Their increasing accessories collection and upholstery collections are working well to soften the image of this once contract heavy brand and we are very excited to work closely with the brand as they push the market more with intelligent design coupled with a strong aesthetic.
