Is London having a design renaissance?

Dezeen Weekly

The episode explores the perceived resurgence of the London Design Festival following a period of decline caused by Brexit and the pandemic.

Key takeaways

• Georgia Merritt is highlighted as an emerging designer using gilding techniques to create photorealistic marble effects on wood.
• Ralph Parks, a self-taught carpenter, is currently producing a cabinet for the V&A museum.

Main topics

• London Design Festival resurgence
• Emerging designers and DIY culture

Notable quotes

London has to compete... it's really good to see more established brands or galleries waking up to that and actually supporting young designers.

Conclusion

The episode provides a hopeful look at London's creative resilience th

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:03) Welcome back to Dazeen Weekly. I'm Jennifer Han and today we've got a special episode for you Speaker 2 (0:07) all Speaker 3 (0:07) about the London Design Festival, which Speaker 2 (0:09) is taking place this week. Speaker 3 (0:11) Joining me in the studio Speaker 2 (0:12) today Speaker 3 (0:12) are Dazeen's Deputy Editor, Kajsa Carlson, and Design and Interiorist Reporter, Jane Englefield, who were out and about over the last couple of days taking it all in. Hi Speaker 1 (0:20) guys, thanks so much for coming on. Hi Jen. Hey, how's it going? Speaker 3 (0:23) Yeah, so busy, busy week for everyone involved. The London Design Festival, for anyone who's not familiar, and I don't blame you if you're not, because in the last decade or so since Brexit and the pandemic, it has kind of dropped off the international radar. But it's London's annual design festival. And this year, it seems to be having a bit of a resurgence. And it's kind of, I would say, probably bigger and better than it's been in eight or nine years, especially because of a whole group of young designers, which we'll get into later. But first off, I guess, tell me a little bit about, was that something you guys felt when you were out and about this week? Speaker 2 (0:55) Yeah, I think it felt very, very bossy. There were loads of things to see this year. And actually, I think this is the first time in a few years for London Design Festival where I've looked at my phone calendar and I've had a list of things I wanted to see every day, which normally happens in Milan and Copenhagen. And this year I had that for London. Speaker 3 (1:12) What about you? Speaker 1 (1:13) I would agree. I feel like there's things that I was genuinely excited to see and, you know, lived up to my expectation, which is always really nice. Speaker 3 (1:19) Yeah. And it kind of hasn't necessarily... been like that over the last couple of years. But then London Design Festival used to be, I mean, much bigger than even this year, right? Can you tell me a bit about like your experiences, I guess, pre-pandemic, what it was like? Speaker 2 (1:34) Yeah, I'm not one of those people who went every year like regularly, but I did go a few times in the pre-pandemic and pre-Brexit times. And I do remember there being more international press on the official LDF press store. In my mind, I feel like there were more large installations, which I feel like... they're not as common now. Yeah. Speaker 3 (1:53) I Speaker 2 (1:53) think that's definitely a change. Yeah, I think COVID and Brexit just really kind of slightly laid waste to it. Speaker 3 (2:00) Yeah. And then obviously, the design fair is kind of shut down. So we don't really have a big, like, fair like that anymore to center an event, which obviously fairs are struggling. So debatable whether really it needs to come back. I think lots of people have lots of opinions about that. But yeah, I think there was definitely... maybe a lull where Speaker 2 (2:19) there wasn't as much that we wanted to see, right? Speaker 3 (2:23) And then, I mean, I think the installation lull is still kind of going on. We've really only got one this year, which I do think still probably speaks to the fact that there's maybe a lack of money at like that kind of high level. But I feel like there's this year, especially there's been this like. gorilla groundswell of designers just kind of doing their own shows. Can you talk to me a bit about that? Speaker 1 (2:45) Yeah, it's kind of feels like people aren't just doing things for the sake of it. They're actually doing it to create kind of meaningful design. I mean, there's lots, as we said earlier, lots of amazing emerging designers who I really am kind of excited about. We covered a few of them in Design Dispatch. But to name but a few, there's a woman called Georgia Merritt. And I think she's an example of someone who was struggling to find work in 2020 when she graduated. And she very smartly did a gilding apprenticeship, which I just think is quite a brave thing to do, you know, to kind of go off and do something that's completely different, but learn a skill. And she now paints kind of like almost photorealistic marble onto wood and makes these really highly produced, amazing products that are literally just made of wood, you know. and Ralph Parks is also an emerging designer who is a self-taught carpenter who told me yesterday that he's currently making a cabinet for the V &A. So to go from, you know, not even doing carpentry at uni to be making a cabinet for the V &A is pretty cool. People are being very industrious at quite a difficult time. Speaker 2 (3:47) Actually, I kind of want to like... jump in here and give a shout out to the V &A since you mentioned it because they do an annual thing every year where they kind of show designers within the V &A spaces in South Kensington and I do just think they do a really good job of combining like kind of emerging designers like Henry Swenson with these like really traditional art pieces and sculptures and I do just think that it's so nice that it's free and that people can actually come and see it and I feel like they have held quite a high standard so Yeah, it's nice to hear that they're also working with emerging designers on things. Speaker 3 (4:16) Yeah, V &A obviously has their annual Emerging Designer Commission. But then there's also this simultaneous movement of kind of designers hosting. shows themselves instead of I think maybe traditionally you know you might have waited for a gallery to pick you up and to show you or for a curator to approach you to feature your work and now I feel like all these young designers are banding together and just putting on shows themselves instead of you know waiting around which I think is really lovely so we've got Design Everything which is a collective they're showing at Aram which is a very institutional long-standing design shop in central London we've got Slantshow, which is a design gallery kind of run by designers. So they just started to show work from some people that aren't necessarily from London. They started in Scotland and are really focused on spotlighting people from across the UK and bringing them to this global stage that LDF is trying to create, at least. So, yeah, I think it's been really heartening to see just kind of, I guess it's that London DIY energy of people are just like, OK, the spaces are expensive. Everything is kind of hard, but... We love being here and so we just want to do stuff, which I think is really nice. I think realistically, big brands and more established designers are still kind of saving their launches for other design weeks just because you do get probably more coverage and more international exposure. But I think there's something so nice about young people who obviously have worked so hard to be here, right? It's really hard making a living in London as a designer. And they're just like, well... I want to show here, like, I love this city. I'm proud of London. I want to show all the amazing work we're doing here. And, you know, if people from London don't invest in London, then who's going to do it? I Speaker 2 (5:54) wonder if that's actually kind of one of the probably few good side effects of Brexit is that designers who might have otherwise like moved abroad or like potentially gone to like Milan or Copenhagen and work there now