TREND: London Town

LONDON’S ICONIC urban design, architecture and skylines still hold massive appeal to designers. We currently love Lulu Guinness’s London-inspired prints on purses and wallets, the Art Deco tube stations and views of Piccadilly Circus that feature on Michelle Mason’s new London Life cushions (below) and her Melamine mugs and trays (the latter a new collaboration with the London Transport Museum). Plus the graphic, illustrated images on Charlene Mullen’s stitched monochrome cushions (pictured left, £110, available from Rockett St George). Add to these the fab new London cut-out paper artwork map poster by Julie Mirabelle of Famille Summerbelle, and the reissued ‘This Is London’ book by ace illustrator Miroslav Sasek, and all you need is Lizzie Allen’s Red Buses & Black Cabs wallpaper (new cushions, £79, in the same print are available from Liberty), to surround your child wtih London-fever before (or after) your next arranged visit… Read the rest of this article

Posted 18 December 2009 in Decor

TREND: Crossover Wallpapers

THE DESIGNERS behind Mini Moderns know the appeal of ‘crossover’ wallpapers. Their own designs - officially for “kids and kidults” - have for seasons adorned their own walls at home in south London (see their Do You Live in A Town?, pictured left) and not just nurseries and children’s bedrooms across the land. But then the papers were originally conceived with the idea “to cover very young children and teens and adults with a humorous yet stylish approach to their interiors,” according to one half of the duo, Keith Stephenson.

Lizzie Allen, a young wallpaper designer who rose to fame with her charming, London-themed hand-drawn paper designs - including the ‘Changing Guards at Buckingham Palace’ and ‘The Royal Guards’, believes the crossover appeal of her own papers is a result of the adult and childhood themes that come together in the designs. “One of the main inspirations is my brother as he is in the army and I’ve grown up with that always being part of my family,” says Lizzie of her Brit, retro military creations. “Another inspiration is A.A. Milne’s poem ‘Changing Guards at Buckingham Palace’ - this was one of my favourite poems growing up and Winnie The Pooh and Christopher Robin were two of my favourite characters. Thirdly, my style of drawing is influenced by the colours, style, and shapes of the 1950s: I love that era!” So presumably do many others. Note the differing appeal of her Changing Guards paper in the Spring colourway and Autumn gold - the latter is infinitely more ‘adult’, despite the motif staying the same. Read the rest of this article

Posted 28 October 2009 in Decor

DECOR: Best Bunting

FAR FROM BEING twee and patriotic, the latest bunting has kicked off its British war-time associations and has become a sophisticated way to enhance a neutral room without making significant cosmetic changes.

Bunting has become a symbol of what many of us we want from our interiors accessories today: what Beth Smith, Deputy Editor of textile-centric Selvedge magazine calls: “instant, inexpensive cheer. Put simply, it makes you smile. It speaks of street parties, birthdays and summer fetes - and it seems people have decided to celebrate all year round. Perhaps it is the interior equivalent of nailing your colours to the mast and defying current circumstances… (Let’s celebrate managing to hang on to our homes!)”

Just remember to pin ‘em high to keep them out of reach of tiny hands…

Our current favourites include:

1. Plumo’s silk bunting (pictured above left). £25 for a 5 metre length, it is made from 80 per cent vintage silks so each length has its own individual charm. Buy at www.plumo.com Read the rest of this article

Posted 5 October 2009 in Decor

CULT REISSUE: byGraziela

“I REMEMBER THE 1980s’ prints most clearly. My mum did an ’80s black and white floral and stripe collection - and I remember me and a friend, aged about 12, going out into our quite suburban town wearing these matching floral outfits - including these weird little leggings. It was really embarrassing. “
So says 32-year-old Nina Nägel, daughter of renowned German textile designer Graziela Preiser who grew up so immersed in her mother’s bright, happy, retro graphic ’70s and ’80s prints on bedding, wallpaper, clothing and crockery that to her they were always just a part of the landscape. That was until Nina, a graphic designer based in London, had her son, Jakob, now 1.
“It was then I think that I really realised how they were more than just a really substantial part of my life. Especially when I dug some of the old ’70s pieces out of my mum’s attic and all my friends starting asking where they could get them. ”

Graziela Preiser’s famed prints were never commercially available. Nina explains how her mother used to work for a magazine (”the equivalent of Red magazine today”) that offered the pieces as mail-order specials to its readers. The magazine made her mother famous, and such was the cult that resulted in her native Germany that Nina gets fans sending her emails detailing the bedlinen they had when they were little. “But then even I used to have sleepovers and all my friends would turn up wearing her pyjamas. Everyone was matching!”

For Nina, this was all impetus for relaunching the brand - a move she started with her One, Two, Three bedlinen range earlier this year (see the print, top picture) - which has since grown to include wall organisers, pyjamas, posters made from original 1970s wallpaper cuttings (see picture, bottom) and a brand new collaboration of graphic mugs and plates with UK design maestro Thorsten van Elten (above). Reissued wallpapers and new posters are just some of the items coming soon, as soon as Nina can decide which of her mother’s amazingly modern-looking patterns to reissue next. Read the rest of this article

Posted 15 June 2009 in Decor

TREND: retro robots

By Jenny Dalton

SERIOUSLY, when my mother was growing up in the 1950s and 60s, she and countless others genuinely believed they’d be being served by robots around now - such was the hype surrounding post-war robotics technology. 

And yet, despite constant and impressive developments, we seem further and further away from living the techno-servant dream. At the same time, we seem loathe to let go of the vintage robot aesthetic of half a century ago - even though the look has been very definitely superseded by today’s quest for near-human robots.

For Clifford Richards, who came to the fore of graphic design in the 1960s, the appeal of such robot aesthetics has never dated. “My robot designs are inspired by Japanese clockwork tin toys of the 50s and 60s. I have a small collection of them plus some more recent examples in plastic. They have an endearingly clumsy human quality that I find quite irresistible - and they’re great fun to do!” Richards’ work on a robotic tip includes mugs for Big Tomato Company, signature graphic identity for the Museum of Childhood in London and a new collection of robot metal clocks, pictured left, coming soon from The Original Metal Box Co. As far as possible he’s kept the clocks industrial and fairly ‘raw’ looking (so be warned, they’re not to play with) to mimic the age and patina of his tin toy collection. Read the rest of this article

Posted 19 May 2009 in Decor