London Design Week 2019

London Design Week 2019 at Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London is such a fabulous event for anyone in the trade but equally for anyone looking for a little design inspiration.

We are so lucky to have Design Centre available to us. There aren’t many places like it in the world. It is open all year, not just for special events, so if you can’t make it up there during design week, try to make it up there another day to visit the fabulous showrooms and speak to some experts!

About London Design Week

Design Week is a 6 day event with the first few days open to trade only. It’s an enormous source of inspiration, knowledge and expertise for both design professionals and design enthusiasts alike.

It’s hugely overwhelming with 600 brands and 120 showrooms to visit. Try to organise yourself and make a list of all your ‘must-see’ showrooms before you go. If you have time at the end then you can visit some of the others. Decide what it is you’re going up there for. Is it to visit your fabric reps or discover new brands or simply to get some inspiration for a project you are working on. Stick to your goals or reasons for visiting. Trust me, it’s very easy to get distracted with so many beautiful products just screaming for you to look at and touch!

Top Tip for visiting Design Centre Chelsea Harbour

Be prepared for a totally exhausting day! I travelled up with my friend, Interior Designer Samantha Crockett from Harris Jackson Interior Design who is a seasoned Design Centre visitor and in fact had worked there herself. So I felt like I had my own personal tour guide. Being a seasoned visitor she was smart enough to bring a small suitcase on wheels to stash away her samples and catalogues. I, on the other hand, wasn’t smart and carried a load of bags with me…the next day my biceps were so sore that I couldn’t fully extend my arms. So that, friends, is my top tip for visiting London Design Week!

Purpose for your visit

Samantha was working on several projects when we visited. This gave her a very focused goal of looking for fabrics and inspiration specifically for those projects. I had a more general reason for attending the show. I’d never been to Design Centre before so I was keen to just visit but I also wanted to discover the new fabric collections and find new brands to open accounts with.

At the end of the day I felt that the effort had been worth it, not because I discovered loads of new brands, but actually because it made me realise that I already had a well curated range of fabric accounts. I didn’t feel that the other brands would add much extra to the brands that I currently hold accounts with and indeed, I found that there was a lot of the same stuff across the showrooms which was, in a way, a little disappointing.

Favourite Showrooms

My favourite showrooms to visit were GP&J Baker and Samuel & Sons. GP&J Baker’s showroom is simply stunning and truly inspirational, I love their collections and their reps are incredibly helpful. Samuel & Sons is like a sweet shop for someone like me – I honestly felt like crying with joy when I walked in to their showroom and I opened an account without hesitation! I urge you to pay them a visit if and when you go to Design Centre Chelsea Harbour.

If you’d like help in finding some inspiration for your design project, please contact me!