PROMOTION: A new design-led trade show called HOME is taking place in London, with over 160 homewares and interior accessories brands exhibiting under one roof at Earls Court Exhibition Centre this January.

HOME 2012, 15th-17th January 2012 (trade only)

EARLS COURT EXHIBITION CENTRE

West Brompton, London SW5 9TA

Offering a wide range of classic, contemporary and ‘Homegrown’ British designed furniture, lighting and interior accessories, the event is divided into three distinctive sections representing the cream of each of these sectors.

In the Modern Home section, visitors can discover the very latest in contemporary interior products. Modern Home houses both the well-established design companies alongside younger boutique brands.

The exhibition features everything from small and occasional furniture and lighting to accessories for the home, office, bar, hotel or restaurant, including clocks, bins, rugs, soft furnishings, tableware, glassware and outdoor accessories.

Exhibiting companies include Stelton, Alessi, LSA, Royal VKB, Eva Solo, SCP, iittala, Authentics, Jonathan Adler, Skandium, Content by Conran and many more.

As a feature, leading design website Dezeen is presenting a selection of 10 of the best new design products from around the world.

Furthermore, the publisher of LONDON DESIGN GUIDE – Spotlight Press – is exhibiting on Stand F1 and is presenting its two latest titles: LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 edition and DEZEEN BOOK OF IDEAS.

Pre-register for tickets at www.home-london.net

The exhibition is open 9:30-18:00 on 15th & 16th and 9:30-17:00 on 17th January.

We can’t keep up with the number of special events, late night shopping and pop-up Christmas stores that are taking place across London in December. Here is our pick of just a handful…

First up, don’t miss The Temporium in Covent Garden. This is a pop-up shop curated by architecture and design website Dezeen, which brings together a mix of new and established designers and brands in a festive shopping frenzy!

1st-24th December, 65 Monmouth Street, London WC2H 9DG

A large show of over 100 designers and brands is taking place in Shoreditch in the form of East London Design Show. This three day event shouldn’t be missed if you’re in the market for Christmas gifts.

2nd-4th December, Shoreditch Town Hall, 380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT

Online design store Theo is hosting a sample sale at its warehouse in Bethnal Green with some eye-watering discounts on most of their stock for four days only!

1-4th December, Unit 14-15, 10-14 Hollybush Gardens, London E2 9QP

The Republic of Fritz Hansen store in Fitzrovia is creating a Winter Wonderland for adults and children. The store is being transformed into Santa’s workshop for one day with families invited to enjoy Christmas decoration making, Danish mulled wine and other Scandinavian treats.

Sunday 4th December, 13 Margaret Street, London W1W 8RN

Leading furniture producer Vitra is hosting the Vitra Christmas Market at their Clerkenwell showroom. Seven stalls are offering special gifts by small producers and designer/makers. 10% of all takings will go to Shelter.

5th-22nd December, Vitra, 30 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1M 5PG

Tom Dixon Shop is hosting a four-day shopping extravaganza and a Sunday food and wine market at their Ladbroke Grove space. Plenty of great Christmas gifts are on show as well as some other surprise treats.

8th-11th December, Wharf Building, Portobello Dock, 344 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5BU

Copies of LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 are available to purchase at all of the events mentioned above!

Other great events:

- Cockpit Arts is hosting Open Studios at their Deptford location, with designer makers selling direct to the public (2nd-4th December).

- Alfies Antique Market is celebrating 35 years in business with a Christmas shopping party on Thursday 8th December.

- Designers Makers Handmade Christmas Market is open at 18 Exmouth Market (Clerkenwell), selling unique items by UK designers.

There are plenty of other great events to mention so we’ll keep adding to this page as we discover them. On the whole, you can assume that most shops are open late each Thursday throughout December!

The annual East London Design Show returns to Shoreditch Town Hall for another selling exhibition of Britain’s emerging homewares, furniture, graphic art, fashion and accessories. 

EAST LONDON DESIGN SHOW, 2nd-4th December 2011

SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL

380 Old Street, London EC1V 9LT

This year, there are 38 new designers out of the 100 joining the show with many launching new products and collections from hand-made one-offs to the mass produced.

Exhibitors include Mini Moderns with their retro textile and homeware designs; Michelle Mason with her design-led giftware; People Will Always Need Plates with their iconic illustrated tableware selection; and Reiko Kaneko with her contemporary bone china tableware and accessories, to name only a few.

LONDON DESIGN GUIDE is available to purchase at the show. We have teamed up with another publisher of London guides – Metro Publications – who are selling the guide on our behalf.

There is a cafe onsite as well as a play area for children.

Admission costs £5 for adults, concessions £3 and accompanied children 15 and under are free.

The show opens on Friday 2nd December from 12-9 and on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th from 10-6.

Following the debut success of The Temporium last year, the temporary Christmas emporium returns to London this Christmas. Purchase design items by a variety of new and established designers and brands in this Covent Garden pop-up shop, presented by Dezeen.

THE TEMPORIUM, 1st-24th December 2011

65 Monmouth Street, London WC2H 9DG

Over 20 different stalls are selling unique gifts and products direct to the public. The theme this year is “24 days of Christmas” and each day a different product is being featured in the store, creating an advent calendar of designer gifts.

Highlights include a selection of glassware and porcelain curated by Spanish designer Jaime Hayon (above); a special edition War Bowl by Dominic Wilcox (below); and a limited edition Christmas product by Paul Cocksedge.

The Christmas tree is decorated with special red and white cycle lights by Swedish designers Bookman while delicious festive take-away snacks are provided by Pom Pom Takoyaki. A festive window display created by Frama is featuring dozens of Diamond Lights designed by Eric Therner (below).

Other designers involved include cult jewellery designers Fiona Paxton, Paperself (whose eccentric paper eyelashes were one of the biggest hits last year), a new UK-based lighting and furniture brand working with Australian designers called Matilda and leading design retailer Theo (below) alongside many, many more.

And don’t forget, LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 EDITION is selling at The Temporium alongside DEZEEN BOOK OF IDEAS. Each book can be purchased for £12 or both together for £20! If you can’t make it to the shop, you can order both books directly from us for delivery anywhere in the world.

Launching on Friday 25th November and running each Friday until Christmas, The Long Table is an outdoor food night market in Dalston, comprising London’s finest street food along with a fully stocked bar and live music.

THE LONG TABLE

6pm-1am, 25th November & 2nd/9th/16th December 2011

Abbott Street, London E8 3DP

The Long Table is all about bringing people together, using great food as the catalyst for conviviality. The Long Table celebrates all different types of foods and tastes with an emphasis on local chefs, purveyors and producers.

Expect signature dishes from chef Nuno Mendes of The Loft Project; slow roasted pork belly in soft steamed buns from Yum Bun; beef-based delights from Hawksmoor; hearty Moorish cuisine from Moro; on-trend meatballs from The Bowler; and quality New York-style hotdogs from Big Apple Hot Dogs.

The night market is a celebration of all types of food and tastes. It takes place in a secret disused space on Abbott Street so follow your nose for the culinary scent on arrival in the street.

The market is covered but wrap up warm nonetheless!

The Long Table is a collaborative project organised by Bootstrap Company and The Loft Project.

Midcentury Modern, the popular one-day show of 20th-Century design classics and modern collectables, returns to Dulwich College. The event is a great opportunity to snap up rare or unusual products without high mark-up prices.

MIDCENTURY MODERN, Sunday 20th November 2011 (10am-4pm)

Christison Hall, DULWICH COLLEGE

London SE21 7LD

Entrance: £7 on the day

Browse around some of Britain’s leading mid-century dealers of Scandinavian, European and American furniture and decorative arts. Merging the past with the present, young British designers sell their designs upstairs.

Midcentury Modern is an unpretentious one-stop shop for busy people who love collecting beautiful pieces for their homes.

Participating dealers and designers can be seen on the Midcentury Modern website.

Copies of LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013 are available to purchase at the show – head to the stand of contemporary design retailer Theo.

Annually, lovers of design classics flock to the popular sample sale at the Knoll showroom in London’s Clerkenwell. The one-day sale is an opportunity to pick up esteemed collectibles by leading 20th Century designers.

KNOLLSTUDIO SAMPLE SALE

Saturday 19th November 2011, 10am-4pm

KNOLL

91 Goswell Road, London EC1V 7EX (020 7236 6655)

Design lovers have the opportunity to take advantage of exclusive offers and buy ex-display and photo-shoot samples at up to 70% discount. Furthermore, you’ll be welcomed with refreshments as well as live music played throughout the day.

The sample sale includes products such as:

- Saarinen Tulip Tables from £199 (previously priced from £480)

- Florence Knoll Marble Coffee Tables from £549 (previously priced from £1164)

- Saarinen Tulip Chairs from £499 (previously priced from £984)

- Tulip Dining Tables from £756 (previously priced from £1512)

Look out for the Knoll Star Buy: an iconic Black Barcelona chair will be selling for £899 instead of its usual retail price of £4572.

Knoll is also offering a 15% discount on all orders on existing collections.

Leading names from the worlds of contemporary art, design, fashion and film have donated postcard size artworks to the 18th RCA SECRET selling event at the infamous postgraduate college, the Royal College of Art.

RCA SECRET 2011

Exhibition open: 18th-25th November 2011

Sale day: 26th November 2011, 8am-6pm

ROYAL COLLEGE OF ART

Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU

Mini masterpieces by new and established talents are up for sale at just £45 each. The money raised from sales goes to the RCA Fine Art Student Award Fund, helping hundreds of emerging artists at a formative stage in their careers.

Artists who have contributed artworks include Tracey Emin, Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry, Yoko Ono and Olafur Eliasson; designers Sir James Dyson and Kenneth Grange; fashion designers Sir Paul Smith, Erdem and Dries can Noten; and film makers Nick Park and Mike Leigh.

RCA SECRET is an annual exhibition and sale of around 2000 postcard-sized original artworks. The postcards are sold to the public in a huge sale that draws a queue of hundreds keen to buy an original artwork for a bargain price.

What’s the secret? Each postcard is signed on the back, so collectors don’t know the identity of the artist until they have made their purchase. A lot of it is down to pure luck and many collectors don’t realise whose work they have chosen until they hand over their cash on the sale day.

Artists may choose to paint, draw, sketch or even imitate the work of other artists as long as it’s postcard-sized.

Potential collectors are able to view all the postcards in person at the RCA in London or online at www.rca.ac.uk/secret from 18th November. All postcards go up for sale for one day only on Saturday 26th November at the RCA.

Postcards can only be bought on a first come, first served basis, with no sealed bids or reservations in advance.

There will be a raffle for collectors to win a position in the first fifty places in the queue.

RCA SECRET is only made possible with the sponsorship of Stewarts Law LLP.

Now in its fifth year, the SuperDesign event returns with a collective exhibition of specially commissioned studio pieces by both well known and emerging designers, taking place at The Dairy in Bloomsbury.

SUPERDESIGN, 13th-17th October 2011

THE DAIRY

7a Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PG

SuperDesign seeks to emphasise the current synergy between design and the visual arts with inventive displays that present contemporary design in a fresh light. Yearly, this show brings together collections from leading galleries and international designers at a crucial time in the art calendar year, during Frieze Art Fair.

Galleries include The Apartment, Nilufar, Spring Projects and Vessel Gallery.

SuperDesign, devised by gallerist Patrick Brillet, has cemented its reputation as an important exhibition of contemporary design-art pieces. The event is open both to the general public and to an audience of international collectors, critics and designers.

Welcome to the second part of our new regular feature on the website, called 4×4. Here, we feature our 4×4 selection of the best design exhibitions taking place on the western side of the city during London Design Festival 2011.

01. 100% Design, Earls Court (22nd-25th September)
Earls Court, Warwick Road, SW5 9TA
100% Design is the big daddy of design events during the festival. This trade fair is the UK forum for major international and UK brands featuring world-class interiors show 100% Design, architectural and interior materials exhibition 100% Materials and emerging talent showcase 100% Futures. Be sure to visit stand X23 for a copy of London Design Guide! More >>>

02. The Dock, Ladbroke Grove (19th-25th September)
344 Ladbroke Grove, W10 5BU
Tom Dixon is to host ‘Multiplex at The Dock’ with exciting indoor, outdoor and water-based installations, exhibitions and workshops and a range of exhibitors such as Aston Martin, Moooi, Innocent Drinks, Piet Hein Eek as well as UP Projects’ Floating Cinema and the launch of Kitchenette – The Dock Kitchen’s lunch-time extension. More >>>

03. Royal College of Art, Kensington (22nd September-5th October)
Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, SW7 2EU
As part of the Brompton Design District, the Royal College of Art is hosting three exhibitions; The Problem Comes First, an exhibition of design research projects from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design; Sustain, a selection of shortlisted entries by 2011 graduating students for the RCA Sustain Award and Give Me More, a new version of the EPFL+ECAL Lab’s exhibition on augmented reality. More >>>

04. Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington (17th-25th September)
Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL
The London Design Festival is running a broad programme of activity in residence at the V&A Museum. There are 12 specially commissioned installations throughout the museum, complemented by a host of events, workshops and talks. Timber Wave by Amanda Levete Architects, Textile Field by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Power of Making exhibition are a must-see! More >>>

05. designjunction, Holborn (22nd-25th September)
Victoria House Basement, 37-63 Southampton Row, WC1B 4DA
designjunction is a new exhibition connecting international design brands to the UK market. designjunction brings together an exclusive line-up of leading UK and international lighting and furniture brands with exhibitors including Anglepoise, Another Country, Benchmark, deadgood and Viaduct. LONDON DESIGN GUIDE is running daily bike tours from here! More >>>

06. LEGO, Covent Garden (15th-25th September)
North Piazza, Covent Garden, WC2E 8HA
LEGO has commissioned the award-winning designer, Sebastian Bergne, to create a public installation using the iconic bricks. The large-scale “LEGO Greenhouse” installation is on display in Covent Garden’s North Piazza throughout the festival. More >>>

07. Outline Editions, Soho (17th-30th September)
94 Berwick Street, W1F 0QF
Award-winning London based graphic artist Noma Bar is demonstrating his new installation Cut It Out at graphic art gallery, Outline Editions. A specially commissioned large-scale embossing machine allows visitors to feed in paper and create their own cut out Noma Bar images. More >>>

08. Theo & Friends Pop Up, Covent Garden (16th-25th September)
65 Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, WC2H 9DG
Thorsten van Elten’s successful online shop theo-theo.com is popping up in the heart of London’s Seven Dials to show their brand new collection as well as products by some of Theo’s best friends including: Daniel Emma, Rob Brandt, Kathleen Hills, Donna Wilson and Very Good and Proper. LDG editor will be signing books here on Saturday 24th September at 4pm. More >>>

09. Darkroom, Bloomsbury (Launches 19th September)
52 Lamb’s Conduit Street, WC1N 3LL
Inspired by the structures, colour palettes, techniques and textures of work by members of the Dutch De Stijl movement of the 1920’s, Darkroom launch their first major self-designed collection of accessories for men, women and the home, called ‘Stolen From De Stijl’.             More >>>

10. Molteni&C Dada, Covent Garden (17th-25th September)
199 Shaftesbury Avenue, WC2H 8JR
Molteni&C Dada is devoting its Covent Garden showroom to designer Arik Levy. “In Power 10” is a conceptual collaboration showing 10 interpretations of the Quake table - one of Levy’s first products designed for this Italian manufacturer. More >>>

11. Skandium, South Kensington (17th-25th September)
245-249 Brompton Road, SW3 2EP
Skandium’s Brompton Road store is staging a retrospective exhibition of work by Swedish architects, Claesson Koivisto Rune featuring architectural models, furniture, tableware and jewellery as well as a new addition to their collection, Alter stool. A book accompanies the exhibition with a foreword written by LDG editor Max Fraser. More >>>

12. Michael Anastassiades, South Kensington (16th-25th September)
235 Brompton Road, SW3 2EP
Taking up temporary residence in an old Victorian jewellery shop on Brompton Road, designer Michael Anastassiades is exhibiting a selection of his recent work alongside some limited-edition pieces designed for the Nilufar Gallery in Milan. More >>>

13. Phillips de Pury & Company, Mayfair (16th September-4th October)
45 – 47 Brook Street, W1K 4HN
British designer and supremo stylist, Faye Toogood, is launching her third furniture collection, Assemblage 3: Delicate Interference in the new gallery space of auction house Phillips de Pury & Company in Mayfair. More >>>

14. Gallery Libby Sellers, Fitzrovia (19th September – 8th October)
41-42 Berners Street W1T 3NB
After four years of ‘popping up’ in temporary international locations, Gallery Libby Sellers is opening in a permanent gallery space during the festival and presenting the London debut of Dutch designers Formafantasma. More >>>

15. Haunch of Venison, Mayfair (24th September-19th November)
6 Burlington Gardens, W1S 3ET
For their first collaboration with Haunch of Venison gallery, design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby are presenting 8 new pieces inspired by the structures and engineered forms of moving craft. Their exhibition Ascent is to taking place at the gallery’s Burlington Gardens space during the festival. More >>>

16. Mint, South Kensington (17th-30th September)
2 North Terrace, Alexander Square, SW3 2BA
Mint is exploring the influence of fashion on design by showcasing works from the Martin Margiela MMM Collection and selected designs by Maurizio Galante & Tal Lancman for Cerruti Baleri. Mint is also showing intriguing works by new designers who do not visually reveal the materials used until the piece is touched or explored closely. More >>>

Read our suggestions for the eastern side of the city >>>

Why not check out our 4×4 selection of furniture, lighting and accessories as featured in LONDON DESIGN GUIDE 2012-2013? Buy your copy now >>>