Caught my eye

There was much to see at yesterday's Midcentury.Modern show in Dulwich. 

Vintage dealers were crammed into the main hall (the 1960s designed refectory Christison Hall at Dulwich College) with their collections of European and American mid-century furniture and lighting. It was wall to wall tables, chairs - and bodies.


Midcentury.Modern at Dulwich College. Quite busy actually.

There was some beautiful vintage furniture on display and not all of it was as crazily expensive as you might expect. We hovered over a rather elegant round rosewood dining table for a while before remembering we have two small boys, one of whom likes climbing on tables. Back it goes on the long list.  

Why go to a show like this? I suppose it's about thinking a bit more about the things you bring into your home and not automatically buying new stuff all the time. By searching the dealer websites, instead of going into a high street store and checking out this season's stock, you might just find something a bit different that surprises and delights you, like this:

Beautiful Ercol beech and elm dining table and chairs designed by Lucian Ercolani, 1958. Selling for £450 from dealer Mark Parrish who was at the show, and had that nice table. Admit it, you could not find something similar in Ikea (although I still love Ikea). 

It's worth a mention that not all the furniture on dealer websites is by big name designers, there's still plenty of solidly made 1960s G plan furniture knocking about at bargain prices.

Back at the show, upstairs there were some fresh graphic treats from the contemporary homeware designers.


I'm always a fan of bold and colourful graphic prints, these ones are simple but powerful. Tablemats by Jenny Duff with illustrations by Gillian Blease (you may recognise her illustrations from The Guardian Weekend magazine)


Loving the granny chic and 1970s colours of these hand thrown storage jars with hand glazed lids by bespoke ceramicist Lubna Chowdhary



In the know

London Design Guide £10 edited by Max Fraser

This is a very handy new book which I highly recommend. It's a guide to the hip and groovy design areas of London with maps, walks and where to get a decent coffee. 

It acknowledges that the city is massive and often hard to navigate, but that it has lots of amazing things to offer - and it's a crying shame if the visitor gets off the tube at Oxford Circus and thinks 'Wow. Oxford Street. I'm here, this is it'. 

So the book works on the basis that you're looking to scratch the surface a little - you might be more interested in Paul Smith than Primark or Marimekko than M&S - and whether you've just arrived (or have been living here for years and got lazy) it shows you where stuff is and how to get there. 

And while it has neat descriptions of places like Dover Street Market, Liberty, the Apple Store, it's not all about shops. Take the Shoreditch and Brick Lane chapter: there's a walk from Old Street tube that takes in a gallery, a church, some radical architecture and ends in a pub.

The book cover, with its graph paper graphics, may have more than a hint of school swot about it, but then after reading this you will be a bit of a know-it-all. Albeit one with an asymmetrical haircut and skinny jeans. 

Bread and butter

Toast house & home s/s 2010 catalogue. They sell jam too.

I don't know what it is about the Toast catalogue, but I always enjoy flicking through it. It's dreamy and evocative of a life I don't actually live, but might do one day if I got my act together and moved to that lemon grove in Sicily. 

Like that's going to happen.

The vibe is very pared down, with soft colours like dove grey and dusky lilac and the odd dart of yellow, it's the simple life in a djellaba, with hammam towels in the bathroom and ticking stripe linens on the bed. If it had a soundtrack it would definitely be found in the world music section.

There's a bit of Morocco, France, Mexico, India and Italy thrown in there, but with a solid dose of Britishness too - they sell marmalade and deckchairs.

This time I'm loving the catalogue for the tiles. Annoyingly they don't actually sell them, the tiles are just in the background on one of their dreamy shoots.

I want these tiles

The Toast look: Hammam chic meets MC Hammer


From haus to home

VitraHaus by architects Herzog & de Meuron, photography Iwan Baan © Vitra

This is the VitraHaus a spectacular new building on the premises of designer furniture and manufacturing company Vitra. If you're a fan of contemporary architecture and happen to be in the suburbs of Basel (on the Swiss/German border) you can visit it. There's a shop and cafe too.


Designed by legendary architects Herzog & de Meuron - of Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing fame, and converting Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern. It is a five-storey stack of houses, abstract versions of the archetypal gabled-ended house, which stick out at gravity-defying angles. It's madness, and I love it. It's purpose? To showcase the Vitra Home Collection. 


VitraHaus at the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany

A bit of background. Vitra is the acme of designer furniture in Europe. The company holds the licences to manufacture and distribute some of the greatest hits of 20th century furniture design. Classics by such luminaries as Charles & Ray Eames, Verner Panton, George Nelson, and more recently designers such as Jasper Morrison and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec. 

And chairs, they have a lot of chairs, in fact they have their own museum devoted to them at their campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany. 

Since 1981 Vitra has been commissioning world famous architects to design unique buildings here: there's the Design Museum by Frank Gehry, the Conference Pavilion by Tadao Ando and the Fire Station by Zaha Hadid. It reads like a roll-call of contemporary architecture's brightest stars and the VitraHaus is the lastest addition on site.

So we know they've got some close personal architect mates, what else? Well, the company used to be known as a slightly dry supplier of office furniture, but in the past few years they've gone all interiorsy. Their Home Collection brings together past and present design classics. And this unparalleled back-catalogue is what makes them stand out. 

They've also got a good ethos. They believe you should furnish your home gradually over time, with things you really love, so it becomes a collage of your taste and experience - but maybe just have a few kick-ass pieces holding it together.


Living la vida Vitra: designer furniture you can actually live with

Nostalgia trip


Blackbirds/Seagulls sketchbook by We Are Family

You may not actually need another sketchbook (or even one at all) but one day you just might find yourself at the cash register with one in your hand. Like I did with this one from We Are Family which has blackbirds on the outside and - quite unnecessarily, but in what makes it feel a bit more special - seagulls on the inside covers. Inside it's plain white paper; page after page of pure white paper and possibility. 

It's very reassuring to be reminded that no matter how much we desire the high resolution LED-backlit multi-touch display of the iPad say, there's nothing quite like the tactile delight of flicking through the pages of an old fashioned sketchbook. And pondering the possibilities that lie within. 

And then picking up your iPhone to type something about it on your blog. 

Hmmm.



Pencils/Scissors sketchbook by We Are Family

Fancy a cuppa


Beep Mug by Colin O'Dowd

I was trying to think of something really deep to say about this mug; about form and function and how having the bar code all around it was like a marriage between aesthetics and practicality. But then it occurred to me that maybe everything just looks better in black and white. And stripes are cool.

So then I thought I'd try out my new favourite iPhone app - Red Laser. For those who don't know it's a bar code scanner which works just like the ones at the checkout, you scan the bar code on your chosen item and you instantly get a list of online prices and product info. It's genius - and it actually works. I am now completely scanner-happy, zapping everything in sight. Any book lying around gets flipped over and the back is zapped. Ping! The cover price may say £10.99, but I can see there are twelve stockists selling it for less. Brilliant. What else can I zap.

Except that when I scanned this mug nothing happened. Well, it recognised the bar code, but it couldn't find a price. Gutted. I was so disappointed. I'm sure there's a very good reason why it doesn't work, but it just seems a shame. The function is lagging behind the form.

Pick Me Up (and maybe don't put me down)



I've already bought a ticket for this event. It runs from 23 April - 3 May 2010 in London and will cost you just £5 to get in.

Highlights include a residency by Mr Scissorhands himself - the much-imitated - paper artist Rob Ryan, and the chance to buy limited edition graphic art, illustration and design by up-and-coming and established talent. You might just find something to put on your wall - and make you smile.

This Bell Will Ring, Rob Ryan 2006