Fresh from the bright lights and celebrity circles of London Fashion Week, the capital’s design-savvy crowds turn their attention to London Design Week: a showcase of the best and brightest interiors brands from the UK and beyond. London Design Week provides brands with the opportunity to present their trend forecasts for the season ahead, and is our first indication of the key colours, palettes, and materials we’ll be spotting across the homes and lifestyle press this autumn.
Image credit: Chelsea Harbour Design Centre
We headed to Chelsea Harbour Design Centre – the epicentre of all things luxury interior design – to represent Victoria + Albert Baths, which hosted an exclusive press preview of its ground-breaking Seros collection ahead of its official big reveal during Salone del Mobile in April. The collection, crafted in collaboration with renowned British sculptor Sophie-Elizabeth Thompson, is an outstanding presentation of the opportunities available thanks to Victoria + Albert’s unique QUARRYCASTÔ material – and is quite unlike anything you have seen from the British bathing brand previously. We can’t reveal *too* much just yet, but keep your eyes peeled – we’ll be revealing all across our socials very shortly!
In the meantime, we jumped at the chance to check out what the Design Centre had to offer – with many of the big fabric houses such as Sanderson Design Group, Romo, Osborne + Little and Watts 1874 leading the charge. We’ve rounded up the top five trends we spotted from this year’s showcase – for further information, you can download our complete trend report here.
Back to Nature
There was a clear focus on foliage and greenery – a trend typically reserved for the spring/summer collections in line with the changing of the seasons. Rich green flora and fauna-style prints were seen across large wall murals, tapestries, and wallpapers, and dominated Chelsea’s fabric and wallpaper houses.
Image credit: Morris & Co
Irregular Regularity
Repeating patterns and unconventional shapes – think geometrics, stripes and Tetris-style squares and rectangles – were seen across a variety of fabrics, rugs, and wallpapers. While there was no strict colour palette, many of the brands we identified kept to muted, neutral shades of burnt orange, browns, blues, and creams – letting the bold prints do the talking. See also: The Rug Company x Paul Smith, which played on geometric shapes to spectacular effect.
Image credit: Chelsea Harbour Design Centre
Regency Style
Regal fabrics with contrasting velvet details were another stand-out trend, featuring iridescent colour palettes with a strong metallic feel to them. This is very much a trend for the bold and brave – an uber-glamorous aesthetic featuring heavy, tactile materials. Take the Bridgerton look one step further with Sanderson’s collaboration with couture designer Giles Deacon, whose decadent, theatrical designs have made almost every LDW trend round-up to date.
Image credits: Sanderson Design Group
Changing it Up
Pattern drenching and clashing prints continued to prove popular. Many brands showcased entire room sets made using mix-and-match prints across walls and furniture in a range of bold, bright primary colours. Look to Kit Kemp, of Ham Yard (and Firmdale Hotels) fame, and her collaboration with GP&J Baker to recreate the look at home.
Image credit: GP&J Baker x Kit Kemp collection
Getting Around
Rounded furniture and circular shapes – either in their complete form, semi-circles or in some instances, knot-inspired designs – were one of the more dominant shapes, offering a far softer aesthetic than the contemporary linear designs we saw at KBB a few weeks back. Think organic shapes across baths, sofas, lighting and lampshades, tables, and other key pieces of furniture, with brands such as Colefax and Fowler, Robert Langford and of course, Victoria + Albert Baths, spearheading this trend.
Image credit: Design Centre Chelsea Harbour
London Design Week is a pre-cursor to many other key moments in the design calendar – notably, the aforementioned Salone del Mobile and Clerkenwell Design Week, so keep your eyes peeled for more presentations and trend roundups from the design industry in the coming weeks. As always, we’ll be on hand to bring readers of the Scoop the latest updates – an integral part of our Rooster DNA is keeping our finger on the pulse for the latest trends to help shape our clients’ strategies, be it a new photoshoot, a trend-led influencer campaign or in some cases, a limited–edition colourway. And we’ll be back at the Design Centre this summer for the brilliant WOW! House showcase, with Victoria + Albert Baths unveiling its biggest room set to date in collaboration with Michaelis Boyd. Watch this space!
