It’s Christmas time and here LDG editor Max Fraser brings you his selection of gifts for the holiday season. As always, we would encourage you to buy well made items with lasting appeal to try to reduce the waste that comes with the merriment and excess. Enjoy!

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Every year in my family, someone buys a new Christmas tree decoration to add to a mish-mash of existing baubles and figurines, each one bringing back memories of a specific year. I find most baubles to be tacky and over-decorated, so I was delighted to discover this mouth-blown and hand engraved glass creation, which somehow encapsulates 2010: fragile and transparent.

Glass baubles by Judith Seng and Alex Valder. £41 from placesandspaces, Clapham (page 154 in LONDON DESIGN GUIDE)

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Candles help add to the atmosphere of Christmas day. These slender glass candlesticks will add an elegant glint to your dining table as you tuck into a feast. A stemware collection by the same designer is also available if you want the entire look.

Tilo range by Anna Torfs. Starting from £130 from Vessel, Notting Hill (page 33 in LDG)

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If, like some members of my family, you are prone to breaking glass then perhaps this etched brass candle holder might be a good option. The detailed pattern unleashes a mass of intricate shadows when lit. There is a similar pendant lampshade version also available.

Etch candle holder by Tom Dixon. £30 from Tom Dixon, Ladbroke Grove (page 32 in LDG)

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OK, back to glass. Well, chunky Quartz crystal actually. These glasses are part of a series designed by Max Lamb for historic crystal company J. & L. Lobmeyr. Lamb wanted to explore the optical effect of faceted crystal, creating a series of 23 cylindrical glasses cut with an increasing number of facets, from 3 to 34. The versions shown above were cut with 6 facets to create thick-walled crystal glassware.

Quartz Series by Max Lamb. £130 (small); £155 (medium); £188 (tall) from Projectory at Phillips de Pury & Company (Saatchi Gallery location)

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If you enjoy a dash of lemon juice with your smoked salmon, try out this futuristic-looking new citrus squeezer. This creation is produced by Alessi, the same company that makes the iconic Juicy Salif lemon squeezer by Philippe Starck (which doesn’t function very well!). Thankfully, and by Starck’s own admission, this one works extremely well!

mysqueeze citrus juicer by Roland Kreiter. £33, available exclusively online from mydeco.com or from Alessi, Mayfair (page 52 in LDG)

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Add some colour to the table with this selection of cheerful steel bowls (gloss on the inside, matt on the outside), originally designed in 1953 by Danish civil engineer, Herbert Krenchel. Excitingly, the iconic design has been reissued in 2010 by Danish brand Normann Copenhagen.

Selection of Krenit bowls by Herbert Krenchel. £12-97 (depending on size) from Skandium, Brompton & Marylebone (pages 20 & 42 in LDG). If you’re searching for a highly-collectible vintage original, visit Rocket Gallery, Shoreditch (page 135 in LDG)

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Of course, Christmas is the time to crack open just about anything that is wet and alcoholic. Here’s a bottle opener that will endure such heavy use, made from cast iron by skilled Japanese craftsmen.

Large bottle opener by Nobuho Miya. £13 from twentytwentyone, Islington (page 119 in LDG)

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A Christmas meal isn’t complete without the crack of some crackers. That said, most of them conceal a useless gift destined for landfill. Not so with these crackers from leading online stationery store, Present & Correct, which are made from graph paper in Devon and contain a few little treasures that you will likely want to keep!

Christmas crackers by Present & Correct. £10 from Present & Correct Pop-In Shop, Clerkenwell or from Present & Correct online shop.

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Over the Christmas period, it is more than likely you’ll get a surprise visit from friends or relatives. So, pull up one of these finely-crafted British-made stools which can double up as a wee side table/drinks perch when not being sat upon.

Stool One (oak) by Another Country. £145 from Another Country or The Temporium, Brompton (9-19th December 2010). Additionally, a limited-edition of 100 solid ash stools has been produced in collaboration with Monocle for £175.

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Of course, if anyone outstays their welcome, show them the door… and these simple coat hooks which they probably failed to notice on arrival!

Ceramic and cork knobs by Jasper Morrison. £9, £14, £21 for ceramic and £8, £10, £12 for cork from Jasper Morrison Shop (page 131 in LDG). Also can be used as handles on furniture. The shop is also open on Saturdays in December.

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During any Christmas down-time, while most people can be found reading a good novel, I’m guilty of using the time to scrub up on my design knowledge. Yeah, cool man. So here is a beast of a book delving into the nuts and bolts of the Eames Office, written and designed over 13 years by ex-employee Marilyn Neuhart and husband John. After this weighty accomplishment, we’ll finally be able to draw a line under the Eames legacy.

The Story of Eames Furniture by Marilyn & John Neuhart. £140 from The Lollipop Shoppe, Spitalfields or directly from the publisher, Gestalten. If you have a spare 16 minutes, be sure to watch this fantastic video about the book.

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Before you sit down to read, it’s important that you have a good light. Here’s a beauty – an architect lamp designed in 1921 by Bernard-Albin Gras and recently reissued. The construction of the lamp, hand made in France, is free from screws or welded joints. There are various versions available but this one is my favourite.

Lampe Gras 207 by Bernard-Albin Gras. £380 from SCP, Shoreditch and Westbourne Grove (pages 136 and 31 in LDG)

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For those of you with children, you probably have to tolerate heaps of ugly plastic toys in your home. Well, American designer David Weeks has designed a series of wooden animals that happily fall into the ‘kidult’ category. Beautifully hand made, each limb is fully flexible and simply held together with elastic. My favourite is Hanno the gorilla.

Hanno the Gorilla by David Weeks. £59 from Aram Store, Covent Garden (page 76 in LDG)

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And on to the New Year. I like to start each year with a fresh new notebook to jot down ideas and future plans. You never know when you will have a lightbulb moment, so it’s best to invest in a good looking book for any public appearances. Crucially, this one has unlined pages (that’s just how I like it), with a Japanese screen printed cover and red linen spine.

Large hand bound notebook. £26 from Darkroom, Bloomsbury. Other colours and sizes are available.

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Finally, a little note to jolt your conscience. A staggering amount of landfill waste is generated each year from excessive packaging as well as unwanted Christmas gifts. We would encourage you to carefully consider the person you are buying for (so that they receive what they actually want), avoid unnecessary packaging, and make a concerted effort to buy into quality items that will last. There, we said it.

Check out GOOD magazine’s ‘10 favourite innovations for reducing plastic consumer waste.’

MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

To mark the launch of their London design store and celebrate the London Design Festival 2010, The Lollipop Shoppe has invited ten European designers to each create a bench for a public design installation.

BENCH 10, 18th-29th September 2010

THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE

10 Lamb Street, Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 6EA (020 7655 4540)

According to The Lollipop Shoppe, public furniture of today deserves an updated, innovative overhaul. Consequently, the invitation to design a new public seat was sent to a number of talented designers for interpretation.

Shay Alkalay, Cecilie Manz, Decode London, Felix De Pass, JDS Architects, Klauser & Carpenter, Michael Marriott/Anthony Burrill, Richard Shed, TAF Architects and Offcut Design. They have each designed a bench which is installed in and around the recently revitalised Old Spitalfields Market.

Each bench has a plaque explaining the design concept, materials, process and biographical information about the designer. Festival visitors tempted to to buy a bench can contact The Lollipop Shoppe to make an offer.

Successful Brighton design store The Lollipop Shoppe has opened its first London outlet within Old Spitalfields Market, selling a diverse portfolio of products from watches to furniture and cushions to lighting.

THE LOLLIPOP SHOPPE

10 Lamb Street, Old Spitalfields Market, London E1 6EA (020 7655 4540)

The product selection at this store tends to favour the quality design classics from big reputable brands such as Vitra, Knoll, Artek, Cassina, and Fritz Hansen.

The 150-square-metre space, arranged over two floors, has been designed by architects Found Associates. The interior has been stripped back to the original brickwork to reveal the Victorian pillars of Old Spitalfields Market.

While exposing the space’s former textures and characteristics, the architects have provided a contrast by installing slick black display units for the edited product selection.

In case you’re wondering about the shop name, it was chosen by the owners Marco and Siobhan Di Rienzo after the 1960s psychedelic garage rock band from Portland, Oregan.

EDITOR’S COMMENTS:

As is policy at LONDON DESIGN GUIDE, I turned up to this store unannounced and hopefully anonymous. My ‘hello-and-a-smile’ radar went on and was thankfully satisfied within seconds of arrival.

Immediate impressions of the space are favourable. Displays are clean and free from clutter as one would expect from a store that was only days old on my visit. Every product is displayed with exhibition-like emphasis which I felt was a bit uptight, particularly in a relatively small space. I would quite like to see more stock choices but I suspect this evolve as the owners grow into their new environment.

I felt rather disappointed that such a high proportion of the stock is comprised of design classics. Nobody questions the virtues of these timeless creations by the likes of Eames, Saarinen, Panton, Bertoia, Jacobsen, Kjaerholm et al. The only problem is London’s design retailers are already awash with the same offerings.

I certainly appreciate the aesthetic style they have opted for at The Lollipop Shoppe, but I can’t help thinking they could be more adventurous with the stock and introduce some items that are not sold elsewhere.

There was an objet on display that indicated that they may be open to such an approach. The laminated cast acrylic sculptures from Vasa Studio (pictured below) were a welcome addition, and I later found out that they are an exclusive to the store. Now we’re talking.