I always look forward to visiting London Design Week in Chelsea. And this year didn’t disappoint. From smart interiors ateliers whose showroom displays extended to pavements heaving with spring planters (of the woven and antique variety) to The Design Centre with its fabulous displays of new interior design. There was much to see, stories to unearth and people to meet. Here, as promised, is just a small snapshot of new interior pattern and colour that caught my eye this week.

Lighting

It’s all about the smart glossy profile with these wooden tiered lamps from Penny Morrison.

Fashion meets interiors

Northumberland is one of the UK’s most beautiful coastal counties and like much of the landscape between the English and Scottish border it is stunning. It also happens to be where two talented textile and wallpaper designers became friends. After previous careers and having children, Charlotte Gaisford and Susi Bellamy trained in textile design as mature students at Newcastle College. In a relatively short space of time, they have both turned their designs into quite phenomenal brands.

This year it is the turn of Charlotte’s friend Susi Bellamy, an ex fashion editor for Brides magazine (who spent several years living in Florence), to be a house guest in the Design Avenue at The Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour. Susi’s stand was beautifully composed with symmetry and scale. The new Romantic Plumage collection reminds me of sumptuous Florentine decoration and the endpapers of antique leather-bound books.

Showcasing her fabric and wallpaper designs, Susie has created a one-stop lifestyle brand with cushions as well as lighting, furniture, flooring and soft furnishings collaborations. They are sometimes photographed in either her own home or on location in country houses and stylish cinemas. With Susi’s love of art and Italy, the connection between fashion and home is an influential ingredient in her design process.

Romo x Alice Temperley

Somerset’s fashion designer Alice Temperley has collaborated with Romo with a sumptuous wallpaper, fabric and cushion collection that includes this powerful small leopard print wallpaper.

Strong stripe game

Two new broad stripe collections that particularly caught my eye for their colour palettes and design are Arthur stripe in Rose Dust by Cinny at Tissus D’Helene – with t-h-e most perfect bed styling I have seen in some time.

As someone who has styled beds for magazine/newspaper stories and for high street brands such as The White Company, Laura Ashley and M&S, I can tell you that getting a happy balance between looking both sumptuous and relaxed at the same time is not an easy thing to do. Essential kit involves steamers, sellotape (to hold the frill/borders in the right position to camera) and a lot of patience!

This superbly firey Ikat stripe (available in other colours too) is by London-based Eloise Showering who launched her fabric and wallpaper designs Eloise Home in 2020. Eloise showed her fabulous new and existing designs as a house guest in the Design Avenue at The Design Centre for London Design Week and has rightly received a lot of interest from both here and in the US.

Colour wheel cushion

Perfect palette by John Derian at Designers Guild.

Multi fabric upholstery styling idea

A Chinese silk design panel creates the backdrop to a Bauhaus-style chair upholstered in contrasting plain and textural fabrics. It made a very pleasing juxtaposition in the Lelievre showroom of new and old design.

Behind the scenes at Osborne & Little

At the Osborne and Little press launch, creative director Johanna Bright presented several strong new Spring collections and kindly brought along some of the original hand painted artworks. It was such a privilege to see these exquisite paintings and to know that design is still being done in the old fashioned way.

Johanna explained that the O&L design team had got inspiration for some of their new water, bird and botanical designs from their creative brainstorming day out at The London Wetland Centre in Barnes and at the Elmley Nature Reserve on the Isle of Sheppey.

Botanical ceramics

Irresistibly gorgeous. John Derian botanical design ceramics for Astier de Villate at Designers Guild flagship store, Kings Road, London.

Small print wallpapers

The power of small prints is seen across many new collections. For me there is something reassuringly cosy about them. Small print designs have time travelled well across the centuries from elegant Georgian rectories to the matchy matchy styling as espoused by Laura Ashley in the 70s and 80s.

I loved the Sanderson showroom’s controlled approach to maximalist styling with the layering of these new designs on picture frames (top image).

Garden room scheme

Sycamore and Oak is an enchanting tangle of foliage, flora and fauna in 3 m wallpaper panels. Seen here with fabric from the new Arboretum collection by Sanderson. Sweet garden room styling in the showroom from this collection with skirted upholstery combined with vintage furniture and textural green matting.

Styling Box

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Thank you

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With many thanks,

Charis x