Highlights From London Design Festival
Stories, surface texture and sumptuousness
It’s taken several deep, hot baths, a few healthy square meals and a number of early nights but we’ve now recovered from our wonderful, exhausting, inspirational trip to Decorex and the London Design Festival – and we’re bringing some incredible gems back to Yorkshire.
Our priorities were to discover new suppliers of lighting, occasional furniture and carpets – and we can’t wait to show off what we’ve found for you.
Having trawled trade fair Decorex, London’s prestigious Pimlico Road and exclusive Chelsea Harbour, we’ve chosen our edit to bring back to the heart of Yorkshire.
The Middlethorpe Interiors ethos is to source carefully, based on exquisite quality and a captivating story. We’re always curious on your behalf – we want to know everything about the materials, the design story and the artisans behind every finished piece. And we were thrilled with what we uncovered.
Although we don’t follow trends, it’s vital to be aware of the what’s going on in the wider design world. The main story we came away with for upcoming seasons was around texture. From natural metal to alabaster, from rock crystal to carrara marble, inspiring blends of texture and surface design were everywhere.
Now we’ve had time to process everything we saw, here’s our round up of the highlights.
Faolchú
This Glasgow-based furniture company was, for us, the star of Decorex. Faolchú was set up by craftsmen Derek Wilson and John Galvin and is characterised by exceptional handcrafted detail. Every piece of wood – mostly native specials from Scotland’s estates and woodlands – is hand selected for its distinctive and unique characteristics. The resulting furniture is designed to pay tribute to the wood, enhancing it with natural oils and waxes.
Tom Faulkner
Another of our favourite hand-crafted furniture-makers, Tom Faulkner fits beautifully with our stated aim of sourcing from the UK wherever possible.
Made predominantly in steel but incorporating bronze, stone and wood, Tom’s strongly architectural furniture is all made in Wiltshire – in a workshop that once formed part of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s railway workshops.
Ochre
Furniture, lighting and accessories designer Ochre elicited the biggest gasps among the Middlethorpe team, thanks to its stunning Seed Cloud chandelier.
This incredible, hand-made piece – customisable to your own dimensions – is made up of solid cast bronze buds, available in polished bronze or satin nickel. Each little ‘seed’ houses a tiny glass drop, illuminated by LED. Lighting nirvana.
Jennifer Manners
Shifting focus from above to below, we’re excited to introduce our clients to some beautiful new carpet suppliers. Jennifer Manners is one of our favourites.
Jennifer’s designs were initially sparked by her travels around the world as a US TV news reporter, blending images and influences collected from Mumbai to Monte Carlo – and everywhere in between. These exquisite handcrafted rugs are made by artisans in India and Nepal, who have passed their skills down through the generations.
Linley
When it comes to wood, Linley is, to this day, the pinnacle of skill and finish. We visited the Pimlico Road showroom to find out more about Linley’s bespoke kitchens and we were utterly bowled over by everything we saw.
One of the most awe-inducing pieces, though, was the London Skyline Panel – designed to showcase its artisans incredible marquetry skills. The design itself took more than 750 hours to create, while one craftsman spent a further 800 hours putting together the 20,000 individual pieces of wood together to create this breathtaking image of London at dusk.
