Established & Sons have produced and ombré version of the Bouroullec’s Quilt chair.

At Milan Salone del Mobile Moroso showed a very controlled Ombré sofa that graduated from a light to dark pink. Incredibly confusing for the camera to shot.

Flip Flap Fold by textile designer Margrethe Odgaard. The dye seeps across the folds of the fabric enhancing the effect of the delicate origami folds

Textile designer  Josefine Wiel Fredén produces some beautiful fabric that has less control than the previous examples. The dye is allowed a little more of a free run. Huge patches of indigo and scarlet dyes have been manipulated just enough to create a repeat pattern; but not enough to feel mechanical produced. Each bolt of fabric is unique.

Alexa Lixfeld’s Cashmere throw uses the old method of tying the fabric to prevent the dye taking in those areas.

Underfull Tablecloth by Kristine Bjaadal At first glance the tablecloth appears to be an ordinary damask tablecloth. Its only when the cloth has been used and abused that the pattern really forms. “Some stains , like red wine, are hard to clean, but since they will be formed as figures, the tablecloth will not look stained. The figures will form a pale, shadowy pattern that will grow as the tablecloth is used over time. This creates stories and can contribute to giving the tablecloth a sentimental value.”

Sonya Winner’s After Matisse rug is inspired by the paper cut outs of the painter. Blocks of colour are overlapped like floating pieces in a kaleidoscope; the thick New Zealand wool pile is hand carved to give variations in depth. Its a beautiful piece that I had the chance to stroke at Super Design so I can personally vouch for its vibrancy and soft touch. You can also read an interview with Sonya on Pop Art Rock Girls blog

Plaid Bench by Raw Edges for Dilmos

“Each of the designs can stand alone however, Raw Edges has made the three benches in such a way that they interlock into one another horizontally and vertically, creating a large rectangular platform forming a vibrant plaid pattern.”

Boca do Lobo’s Pixel Cabinet features 1088 individual triangles of lacquered wood. The pieces have been overlay ed with gold and silver leaf and translucent lacquer applied to give the cabinet a lustrous shimmering finish.

Bashko Trybek’s Color Wheel Clock  “A Color Wheel clock provides a new per­spect­ive on the way of com­mu­nic­at­ing time. This idea refers to the Sun — the first, primt­ive clock in nature, reflect­ing the passing of time. The Sun emits light, a spec­trum of col­ours vis­ible while going through a prism. This phe­nom­ena was an inspir­a­tion for design­ing the face of the clock. Read­ing the time from the color wheel clock is simple: red stands for noon, the wheels from biggest to smal­lest stand, respect­ively, for hours, minutes and seconds.” I found it a bit tricky to read at first but pop back to his webistie and you’ll see an online real time version.

Bright vibrant colours have also been used in a couple of Hotel refits that have opened up this year. In Paris Matali Crasset has designed the interior for Hi Matic

The hotel contains 42 flexible cabins that allow the visitor to use the space as a home from home. With 100% internet access a memory foam bed that serves a sofa during the day the cabin is designed to change with with your needs througout the day. Each cabin features bright panels of colour with translucent panels allowing the light to filter through.

In Barcelona the Hotel Mimic aims to further enhance your mood with a shot of colour. As designer Xavier Claramunt says “Colours provide a dose of optimism: vibrant colours are capable of lifting the morale as a palette of dull greys is to make it sink. Colours will not raise the economy but they can brighten your mood”

The V&A ran breakfast talks at the Sackler Centre and the first talk  of the festival for me was Kiki van Eijke and Joost van Bleiswijk interviewed by Surface Magazine. The talk covered their careers to date from the graduation and early Milan shows up to their new textile collection for Bernhardt Design,which was launched at the festival.

Despite their close connection and showing their work together they sketch out ideas independently before discussing and developing projects. Kiki talking about a room divider and chair shown in Milan a couple of years back.  “A lot of people think that the construction, the metal part is Joost’s design but its not; I was drawing it.  Its just… I think somehow superficial that people think  “oh its metal it must be Joost” but it doesn’t work like that’ Joost “We always see the same films, we have  same books I think you can see a sort of wave across the things that we do, it has the same feel “

For the Bernhardt project Joost explained that the project was initially given a working title of “Fun Fight with Fabric” reflecting the conflicting opinions that went into this collaboration.

Joost wasn’t really used to doing patterns so he escaped from the computer making structures from pieces of metal or wood and Kiki would add on to the piece either with stitching or on the computer to develop the designs. I really liked the playful “Fun Fight with Fabric” title and how it describes the process; but from a commercial stand point Workshop best conveys the actual outcome.

The sofa was initally made from themselves but became a part of the project when it became clear it was a great way to show the breath of the collection they had created.  “We liked the fact you have a number of different textiles on 1 sofa in different colours ….there are 40 textiles, 5 different textures, 8 designs, and they can all be combined.”

It was also interesting to hear about their new studio in Eindhoven and how space can have an influence on what and how they develop products. The huge new studio was originally a Phillips paper factory building and its scale has an impact on how they can design. At 1200sq metres and 11 meters high,the scale allows many different uses in one space, it also acts as a showroom for pieces that are not out on display or haven’t been sold. It suits Kiki’s play on proportion that runs through her work and the industrial architectural feel to Joost’s.

Kiki also revealed a collaboration with Haagen Dazs for a Christmas cake made of ice cream. Its  not gone through the final tasting test yet but I can’t wait to see what it will be like  – no pictures were seen so I guess we’ll just have to wait for Christmas!

Inga Sempe’s Ruche bed for Ligne Roset was a last minute change. “I thought this was going to be blue!” she said as she bounced onto the bed shown at  Maison et Objet. A quick change  had been made to a softer feminine nude tone for the room set. As you can see from the image Inga left the bed unmade!

Also at Maison Object the Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec display had their Slow Chair for Magis in brighter ice cream pink.

The theme continued into Milan where any number of chairs appeared in fleshy tones through to deep raspberry.

Bouroullec’s Quilt chair for Established & Son was updated in a faded pink.

Stefan Diez Houdini Chair mixed pink with dark leather.

Floris Schoonderbeek’s Axe chair also has a pink version.

Patricia Urquiola’s Klara Chair for Moroso was amongt many pink pieces on the Moroso stand.

Comet Chair Gunilla Allard for Lammhults comes in a range of pinks from soft light through to raspberry.

Maarten Baas used very fleshy tone of pink for his Clay range at Spazio Rosana Orlandi

Home accessories have also had the pink treatment Established & Son’s new Serve tray is edged in raspberry.

For textiles pink is an accent. Seen here Sebastain Wrong’s Zig Zag rug for Established & Sons, and finally Studio Makkink & Bey for Hay Studio who’s rug also appeared on the Vitra stand.
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Piet has spent his career working with reclaimed materials. A graduate of the Design School in Eindhoven, in 1990 he produced his first work made entirely from recycled wood and has built his career around the concept of reusing, adapting and recycling. Its not just his desire to be ecological its more a thought process beginning with the material around him.

Pictured above is detail from a lamp he produced for Spazio Rossana Orlandi.  Formally a tie factory the store had rolls of unused tie fabric in the loft. Piet has used the fabric to create lampshades over a simple wire frame.  Shown here are the two sizes of lamp base and a large pendant shade.

 Also displayed were the 99% cabinets. Continuing on a philosophy of the most efficient use of material and labour, the production of the cabinets leaves less than 1% wastage from the original sheet of metal. The cabinet is available in white coated aluminium, copper or the brass version pictured below.

The plank chair was a personal favourite of mine. Born out of an irritation at mediocre design sold at a ridiculous price, Piet decided at Salone 2008 to create an inexpensive high quality product. Not only that, you can actually produce this chair yourself, plans and instructions were provided.  I nabbed a copy but my photo of them is a little too small to be of use – the plans will be available from his website in the future.

It does look incredibly simple to do (certainly compared to a dress pattern!) but unfortunately the instructions are in Dutch so I’m getting a friend of mine to translate before I attempt it.

Also shown was a collection based on his work with scrap pieces of wood. The Dark coffee table, bench and chairs were all made using doors and wood panelling found in an old watermill. The pictures here are taken from his website, I’m afraid I got distracted by his book and forgot to take the pics myself!

 Shown here is a close up of how the scrap collection is put together and lacquered. Ten layers of high gloss lacquer are applied to the pieces giving a beautiful water effect, and an amazing silky feel.  

For more information on his work  (and better pictures) here’s the link to his website

 http://www.pietheineek.nl/

Here are couple of interviews Peit did for Dwell and also Design.nl giving a more detailed insight  into the production of this collection.

http://design.nl/item/five_minutes_in_milan___piet_hein_eek

http://www.dwell.com/articles/interview-piet-hein-eek.html

Here’s a link for the book by Max Fraser covering the first 15 years of his work – sorry its amazon- other book stores are available! just use the isbn no.   

http://www.amazon.com/Boek-Piet-Hein-Max-Fraser/dp/9063691483

Or, even better, if you email here  apparently you can get a signed copy Well it says so on his website!

http://www.pietheineek.nl/en/book

We’ve seen so many plaid shirts around I guess it was inevitable it crossed over into furniture.

I love the way Norwegian firm LK Hjelle have used plaid to cover a number of their designs. Their Boy Ottoman pictured in the background looks particularly cute in red plaid. In the foreground is their modular seating system Ugo.

Also by LK Hjelle Hotel Chair

Ralph Lauren have been pushing plaid for years and they’ve got a great range to choose from to get this look.

Osbourne & Little’s Lomond Wool Collection is a more contemporary update of Plaid using hot pinks and chartreuse mixed in with the more traditional plaid colour palette.

And to complete the theme you could also listen to Plaid, an old favourite of mine and they just happen to be playing at the Southbank Centre this weekend…

Have a peek at their lovely site to see what they do http://www.plaid.co.uk/