London Design Festival puts the spotlight on our creative capital


This year, more than any, it should be a showcase through fashion, design, interiors and craft to the dawning of a new era – one with a sharp future focus.


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Post-Recession Psyches reached for nostalgia. From rough, weatherbeaten materials and nods to times gone by in interiors to woodblock-printed effect graphics, all of this was designed to cocoon customers in a sense of the past. On the independent design scene, furniture has recently played on craftsmanship and quality. This trend continues, but there has been a definite feel this year across a spectrum of design disciplines of a more playful, irreverent and charismatic twist on how things are made and look. This futuristic sensibility has played out in many of the shows leading up to LDF.

YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September
YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September

Astrid Andersen's show for London Collections: Men, certainly exhibited a gung-ho take on times new with a totally inspired collection. Hip-hop references and exaggerated and distorted volumes shifted the classic homeboy look into one that veered towards ninja fantasy: the ripped boys with their totally tripped-out outfits of collaged magenta-tinted sheer fabrics with menacing shell-suited layering to the most stunning and never-seen-before effect. Andersen cites her influences, after a recent trip to Japan, as the 'stereotypes of masculinity through the ceremony, ritual and rich dichotomies of the sport of sumo wrestling'. Look up her collection at youtube.com/watch?v=WO018iC-9rA. Does this point at a more exciting and fresh take on new aesthetics...? One hopes so.

YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September
YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September

For interiors, the RCA's inaugural show for the interior design MA (previously mixed with architecture), led by Ab Rogers and Ian Higgins, opened with a really spectacular and immersive first show. I have been teaching part-time on the course this year, and it has been a role I've relished, mainly because of the commitment by and inspiration from the students. The RCA is always a place that takes a good bite into the future, and the work across all disciplines definitely looked forward to some interesting scenarios. Of note, Leon Karcinari looked at the disused demountable cabins that are often left abandoned for months on building sites while planners and property developers collide, to create temporary live-work spaces for artists. On a totally different scale Jakob Oesterreicher created a transportable pop-up exhibition inspired by the humble peg; a clever display that celebrated such a tiny and overlooked object in all its diversity.

YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September
YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September

At Milan Design Week this year, furniture design on many scales - from the designer-makers to the large commercial companies - exhibited a more raw and playful outlook. The bold and the beautiful collided in the Campana Brothers' impressive Bastardo sofa. A twisting superscale spaghetti of pistachio green furry padded arms on a giant pebble-like padded base that could be reconfigured in multiple different positions, depending on your mood.

YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September
YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September

Materially exciting experiments into jarring combinations of seemingly opposing matter flowed through the work of Roos Gamperts in his collection Foam and Glass. These are true contemporary still life textural studies in one object and show a new take on materials that is fresh and unseen. This art craft approach to design feels parallel to some of the work by Gaetano Pesce in the Eighties, but signals a defiant anti-mass production and a streamlined ubiquity in design.

British designer James Shaw, whose table bases are made from a modelling compound-like, squidged-out form of molten, non-recyclable plastics, also plays on the aesthetics of materiality, and we have been working in collaboration this year on a number of projects.

YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September
YourStudio is exhibiting objects and relics, some shown here, from an imagined future in Future Archive, part of the London Design Festival 1321 September

And as for us at YourStudio, for London Design Festival this year we'll be showing Future Archive, an exhibition displaying a range of objects and relics from an imagined future (such as those shown on this page), exploring how we may work, rest and play. Our exhibition takes its cues from statistics and evidence from our Trends and Insights Platform, but has propelled them further than the imagination would normally take them. We'll also be hosting a series of talks and events around the environments we've created.

As for what London Design Festival represents for all of us as designers, I think it's our chance to proclaim to the world what's happening next. As author Anais Nin said: 'Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage'. Let's hope that this futuristic and curious attitude comes across from all participating as the London Design Festival opens its doors on 13 September.








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