London Design Festival 2026: live updates from the Wallpaper* team

News from Coal Office

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It is now a Wallpaper* tradition to pop by Tom Dixon's Coal Office at the start of London Design Festival. As usual, the British designer/entrepreneur welcomes us with coffee, a mix of stories from what he's been up to, and an overview of the new launches. 'We've gone multifunctional,' he declares as he shows us his new cast iron collection of accessories that serve a variety of purposes: bowls become trivets, a shoe-shaped doorstopper is also a vase, a hand-shaped phone stand gives a mildly inappropriate gesture - you get the vibe.

Among his new lighting launches are a copper interpretation of some of his classic designs, a series of Cone lamps that come together through magnets, and a lot of deliciously-coloured upholstery. On view is also his recent collaboration with Vispring, taking his boldness to the bedroom.

The Coal Office, 1 Bagley Walk, London N1C 4PQ

Isabel + Helen’s Motion Sickness takes over The Conran Shop

Isabel + Helen are celebrating ten years of making things move with Motion Sickness at The Conran Shop in Sloane Square. The exhibition looks back at the duo’s experiments with materials and mechanics, driven by a sense of play and movement that has shaped their work over the years.

The exhibition features a selection of earlier prototypes including the Wallpaper asterisk used for our previous Design awards, bringing both heir thought process and reasoning to into full view. Each work shows a display of how Isabel + Helen test an idea and gradually set it in motion, often using the simplest of materials.

Included in the exhibition are limited edition prints and lamps available to purchase, with displays from visual projects with Burberry, Cartier and more…

16 Sloane Square, London SW1W 8ER

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

RUBELLI INTRODUCES KEIFFER’S ‘4’

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Kieffer launches their new collection titled ‘4’ in collaboration with Formafantasma. The collection focuses on Kieffer’s identity with a series of upholstery fabrics varying in texture and materials. Patterns are used for exploration and evolution, which is at the core of the brand, where its designs stem from the fabric, not the other way around. Patterns and motifs become tools to enhance the structure, movement, and depth of the material, creating surfaces capable of interacting with both spaces and light. The colour palette remains one of the fundamental tools of this research. Natural, deep, and calibrated tones meet more intense accents - forming a beautiful and considered palette. Highlight fabric designs include Wild, Pebble Beach, Fem and Layers.

Rubelli Showroom, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 0XF

Olly Mason

Dedar presents the latest collections including Versi Liberi

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Dedar kicks off the Design Centre Chelsea Harbours FOCUS/26 in their showroom, celebrating their latest collections including a full length installation of Vesi Liberi, showcasing the designs varying materiality and texture.

Dedar Showroom, Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 0XF

Olly Mason

The Strand welcomes Studio Saar and Atelier One as they present The Pangolin Shield

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For this year’s London Design Festival Landmark Project, Studio Saar and Atelier One have created The Pangolin Shield with support from Secure. Installed on Strand Aldwych, opposite Somerset House, the work follows the movement of people and materials from India to the UK, opening up conversations around colonial legacies and ecological exploitation.

The external structure takes its form from the world’s most trafficked mammal, the pangolin, with its overlapping scales echoed in a bamboo grid shell.

Atelier One’s knowledge of bamboo construction shapes the structure, which is covered with traditional Indian police shields and woven rain shields known as knups, used by farmers in north eastern India. The use of plastic sheeting brings subtle differences in colour to each shield, which is visible across the Strand.

At the core of this installation is protection, reinforced through sustainable materials and updated techniques.

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

An aural experience at the Wapping Power Station

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For those of us lucky enough to have known and loved this building as the heart of Wapping Project, the independent arts institution run at the location by the late Jules Wright until 2013, coming back to the Wapping Power Station was an emotional experience, enhanced by the sound installations held in the space.

The word immersive doesn’t quite begin to capture the experience of finding oneself in the cavernous space, dimly lit by red spotlights, the sound taking over in an almost physical way.

The installation invites visitors to sit in silence and take on the aural effects created by Chris Watson, an abstract arrangement of sounds captured around Hull's Humber Estuary, accompanied by further soundscapes curated by L-Acoustics and the Alliance for Women Film Composers. Rosa Bertoli

SCP celebrate’s a new chapter by opening in Clerkenwell Green

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Designed by Nice Projects, SCP Clerkenwell Green occupies a townhouse in the heart of Clerkenwell. The showroom extends across five floors, with retail on the ground floor, a dedicated lighting department on the lower ground floor designed by Jon Harrison in collaboration with Nice Projects, courtyard space and event hosting space located in the
adjoining office buildings.

Notable pieces on show are Dittico - a collection of vases developed in collaboration between London-based designer Martino Gamper and Italian manufacturing giants, Bitossi Ceramiche.
Also on show is Källemo - founded in 1973 in Småland by Sven Lundh, Källemo has built a reputation for producing furniture that resists short-term trends and maintains its relevance over time. Distinctive designs include the Bruno Easy Chair, the Aluminium Easy Chair, and the National Geographic Cabinet by Mats Theselius.

Through the courtyard is Very Simple: Kitchen - the Italian kitchen company has joined SCP's growing offering of furniture, lighting and interior brands at the now showroom. Very Simple: Kitchen produces modular kitchens built from stainless steel or recycled steel.

Also on show are Blue Green Works products throughout the showroom, including the Garden Terrace pendant from their 2026 Garden Collection.

Also spotted in the SCP courtyard - Wallpaper*s China Editor, Yoko Choy! Sat amongst a range of Shore Studios designs, including a curved sofa, curved bench, pouffe and a pair of gradient round side chairs. The London-based design studio founded by Louie Rigano and Gil Muller specialises in woven, high-performance silicone material, developed and produced entirely in-house using bespoke techniques informed by extensive research and an experimental craft approach.

SCP Clerkenwell Green 16 Clerkenwell Green London EC1R 0QT

Olly Mason

FritzHansen x Technics collaboration at FritzHansen Sound Club - a space through light and sound

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Fritz Hansen Sound Club is a multi-space installation, exploring how sound shapes the way that furniture, light and materials are experienced in interior settings.
To celebrate its 90th anniversary a limited-edition KAISER idell™ Lexus lamp and
Technics – SL 40CB turntable in matching burgundy lacquer, are the centrepiece for each setting and listening moment.

Fritz Hansen, 78 Cowcross Street,, London,EC1 6EJ
Olly Mason

Faye Toogood introduces ‘curiously phallic’ lighting sculptures

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If you think Faye Toogood’s latest lighting collection looks like a series of comically large condoms hanging from wrought iron frames, you wouldn’t be alone - her studio absolutely agrees. In fact, that’s how the collection earned its name, Johnny - the British slang for condom. Rather than latex, however, these Johnnies are made from paper that you are encouraged to scrunch to reshape their forms. Available as a cloud-like pendant, two sizes of standing lamp and a table lamp, each one has a tripod base that nods to traditional candle stands, reliquaries and ritual objects - a reoccurring theme in Toogood’s oeuvre. The lamps are on show in the studio’s Borough showroom this week.

Open today and then appointment only: Faye Toogood, 48A Union Street, London SE1 1TD
Ali Morris

MADE brings the Barbican collection home

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For the first look at MADE x Barbican, MADE has placed its new Barbican collection back in the space that inspired it. Located towards the rear of the ground floor, a large white box contains a number of small rooms, with each one showing the collection in a different arrangement, with chairs gathered around tables and shaggy rugs laid beneath and around them. Smaller pieces appear throughout, giving the designs the feeling of how they can be presented in situ.

The collection draws on the Barbican Estate’s renowned Brutalist architecture, picking up the strong geometry of its concrete structure, ceilings, and the graphic silhouettes created by its balconies. It also looks inside the apartments, taking cues from Miriam Howitt’s original interiors, with references appearing across the collection through recurring patterns and sculptural lines.

The display continues one floor above, where visitors are presented with more of the collection. The signature Curve Table Lamps, Plinth Narrow Shelving and easily sinkable Balcony Woven Geo/Burgundy Red Avalon sofa are arranged around the space and bar area, alongside a separate presentation of the pieces shown below.

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

Craft x Tech brings Japanese historic making into the present

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The V&A welcomes this year's edition of Craft x Tech, bringing together six traditional craft producers from Japan and international designers. The project looks at how specialist techniques, handed down through generations, might take on new forms through contemporary design.

The show starts with Canadian designer Philippe Malouin's collaboration with Owari Shippo presenting Japanese cloisonné enamel in stackable boxes with interchangeable final forms. Created by laying fine metal wires across shaped copper objects before carefully filling each section with coloured vitreous enamel paste. Now practised by the family's fifth generation, the craft has a direct connection to the V&A, where the current maker's grandfather's work is held in the V&A East storehouse.

A nearby display follows Malouin's process, beginning with early Sharpie drawings and moving through material tests and samples. Materials and objects from the other projects are shown alongside them. Visitors can follow an artisan's established visual language and see how an international designer has responded, watching as their ideas gradually begin to meet.

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One of the most immediate works comes from English multidisciplinary designer Bethan Laura Wood's collaboration with artisans Kataginu, practising Arimatsu Narumi shibori, the centuries-old method of manipulating fabric before dyeing it. Wood applies the approach to lighting, paying attention to how the material behaves when illuminated through each fold and dyed area, casting shadows that become part of the object itself.

Elsewhere, Lanzavecchia + Wai rework Mino washi into a self-standing screen, reinterpreting traditional shoji archetypes. The traditionally handmade paper made from plant fibres has a surprising physical presence up close, mimicking the texture of cloth. The same handmade paper runs through the exhibition design, lining individual boxes and quietly shaping how visitors encounter the other works. Other works include collaborations between South African artist and designer Atang Tshikare working with Iga Kumihimo, while Japanese American contemporary artist Eugene Kangawa of EUGENE STUDIO works with Seto Sometsuke Yaki.

The collective displays give a clearer idea of the time behind each piece, while showing the importance of archiving and passing these historic processes on. All pieces will also be available to purchase.

Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

Progressive Permanence - Max Radford Gallery x Christopher Farr Rugs

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Born of mutual respect and a shared interest in assembling exceptional pieces that transcend time, Christopher Farr opened their portfolio to Max Radford to cast his curatorial eye. Both started out in different eras, yet share roots in London. Their collective belief is to redefine where fine art meets function and where desıgn provides self-expression as well as demands an emotional response.

For this collaboration, Progressive Permanence celebrates seven rugs alongside seven pieces of furniture. Diverse materiality and forms, limited edition and collectible pieces, are relevant to those starting to build their own collection or simply seeking an individualistic point of difference.

A conversation between Max Radford and Matthew Bourne together with Wallpaper*s Design Critic Hugo MacDonald marked the event

Christopher Farr, 18 Calvin St, London E1 6HF

Olly Mason

Calico Wallpaper launches Estuary - a new collection in collaboration with Ahluwalia

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Calico Wallpaper held an intimate dinner to celebrate the launch of Estuary, a new wallpaper collection created in collaboration with Ahluwalia at NoMad London.

The new collection of wallpaper designs features a series of evocative and fluid forms with varying colour and depth. The collection is rooted in migration, storytelling and craftsmanship, reflecting on how identity is shaped by the memories and journeys we carry with us.

Dinner held at NoMad, 28 Bow St, London WC2E 7AW

Olly Mason

Porta Romana’s new collections

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At Porta Romana’s showroom in the Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, the Traces collection is shaped by forms that have endured and ideas that have evolved. Familiar Porta Romana silhouettes are reimagined through shifts in scale, changes in function, and a renewed focus on materiality.

A wall light becomes a ceiling light. Tables take on new proportions and possibilities. Each piece carries a trace of what came before, reflecting the natural evolution of a design language refined over decades and also launching an outdoor range - translating the artistry and sculptural forms synonymous with Porta Romana for life in the open air. Conceived as a cohesive family and elegantly proportioned, the collection includes hand-forged furniture, decorative wall lanterns, hanging lights, and portable lamps.

Porta Romana , Design Centre Chelsea Harbour, Chelsea Harbour Dr, London SW10 0XE

Olly Mason

Bocci adds Bowie-flair to its dinner

The sour cherry jelly desserts matched the lighting designs last night at Bocci, which celebrated its collaboration with Bethan Laura Wood. As the Canadian lighting studio unveiled a new purple colourway for its mini portable 14p, the design was enhanced by Wood’s architectural installation (inspired by the movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie.

Rosa Bertoli

Yinka Ilori finds joy in the everyday with Brabantia

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For artist and designer Yinka Ilori has spent much of this year thinking about joy. Following his debut London exhibition ‘Joy Through Resistance’, a series of collaborations and an impressive book launch, he has now turned his attention to the household objects we use every day.

Presenting a limited-edition collection with the Netherlands brand Brabantia, bringing together a range of bold patterns for bins, while an ironing board and drying rack add colour to familiar chores. Ilori continues to explore joy in everyday life through his use of bold, bright colours, bringing that thinking to objects that often go unnoticed unless needed.

There is also a ‘Make & Take’ set for carrying food and drinks. Perfect for lunch or those days out and about! The collection is now on sale through Brabantia.

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

Faye Toogood launches ‘Johnny’ with lunch by Merlin Labron-Johnson at her new South-London studio

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During Wednesday lunchtime, Faye celebrates the launch of Johnny - a new family of illuminated sculptures that transforms crumpled paper into sculptural vessels of light. The delicious food was by Merlin Labron-Johnson, of Osip in Somerset and The Pharmacy in Bruton, with lovely conversation between designers, friends and journalists. Miniature Johnny-inspired sculptures allowed us to all find our place at the table.

Ps. Spotted in the studio - Wallpaper*s 30th Anniversary cake designed by Faye!

Faye Toogood Studio, 48a Union Street, London SE1 1TD

Olly Mason

USM presents ‘Record Shop’ in collaboration with Symbol Audio and The Vinyl Factory

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Set up as a working record shop, with curated DJ sets, books, and vinyl from The Vinyl Factory, and a coffee bar from Origin, USM launched new USM Speaker Modules from Symbol Audio.
USM has a longstanding collaboration with Symbol Audio specifically for the display and storage of vinyl. The new collection of sound solutions integrates seamlessly with USM, including display cabinets, record stands, a DJ booth, audio and media consoles, and vinyl crates, which were developed originally by Symbol Audio. A collaboration with The Vinyl Factory - the renowned record label - allows visitors to browse through vinyl within the installation.

USM Showroom, Marylebone Square, 12 Cramer St, London W1U 4EA

Olly Mason

Richard Henley lights up East London

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London designer Richard Henley took the opportunity during LDF to officially launch his eponymous studio, Richard Henley Design, with a showcase of his distinctive lighting. Among the pieces was ‘Kradat’, which caught Wallpaper*’s eye at last year’s ‘You Can Sit With Us’ exhibition by 2LG during London Design Festival. Featuring zebra-like patterns hand-drawn in ink onto mulberry-paper diffusers and crisp aluminium bases, Henley’s lamps are meticulously hand-welded with no visible joins. While the launch showcase was open for one morning only at Crispin in Spitalfields, Henley’s ‘Io’ table lamp can still be seen at Collate Lobby. It features a banana-fibre diffuser and a cylindrical marbled ceramic base made in Camberwell by Melissa Restrepo.

1-3 Yorkton Workshops E2 8NH. Until 20th September

Ali Morris

The Shape of Scent

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In Shoreditch at vintage clothing store Bread and Butter, design studios .obj and Super Ornament showed off the results of their first collaboration in an exhibition titled ‘The Shape of Scent’. The show came about when .obj asked the Birmingham-based duo to imagine what three of its candle fragrances would look like if they were objects. The resulting pieces translate fragrance characters - bright and uplifting to grounded and composed - into pieces of metal lighting and furniture. Pieces include a folding screen with decorative metal panels and a standing lamp with a spherical diffuser.

‘Every scent evokes a feeling and memory, shifting the space it inhabits, ‘ said the designers. ‘Each piece embodies the character of the scents through its form, purpose, and surface treatments.’

72 Rivington Street, London EC2A 3AY
Ali Morris

Conversations with Kartell

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Last night, Wallpaper* hosted a special conversation with Kartell to celebrate the launch of Savoia, the brand’s new chair by designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. Hosted by Wallpaper* Design Director Rosa Bertoli, the discussion brought together Barber and Osgerby with Kartell’s Global Marketing & Retail Director, Lorenza Luti, to explore the ideas and design thinking behind Savoia, which was first unveiled at Salone del Mobile earlier this year and begins shipping next week. The conversation offered an insight into the creative process behind the chair, as well as the collaboration between Kartell and Barber Osgerby that brought the design to life.

Rosie Cave

Lee Broom takes us back in time

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Stepping into Lee Broom’s showroom this week, we were transported back to the 1970s. A warm beige drenched everything, from the carpet underfoot to the wood panelling and vertical slatted blinds that cleverly divided the space. The focal point was Broom’s glass-brick ‘Chant’ light. Originally launched as a portable surface lamp inspired by the interior architecture of the era, it has now available as a modular component that can be used to create everything from dramatic grid configurations suspended from the ceiling to simple lines of three or four bricks mounted on the wall. The beauty of the system, Lee explained, is that it gives designers complete flexibility to let their creativity run wild - snaking the illuminated bricks across ceilings and down walls as they please.

Lee Broom, 91, 93 and 95 Rivington Street, Shoreditch, London, EC2A 3AY

Ali Morris

Our Parlour makes room for play at Brompton Design District

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The Nigerian Parlour has been known as a place to gather, eat and pass stories between generations. At Brompton Design District’s Perfectly Imperfect residency, curator Zoë Chinonso Ene has made one with designer Chinasa Chukwu, art director and photographer Christina Nwabugo, and private chef Ogochukwu Igwilo. Set on the second floor, Our Parlour brings together the practices and shared cultural memory of four Igbo women in a room where visitors can settle in and spend time.

At its centre is Nchọ, Ene’s heirloom reinterpretation of a traditional Igbo strategy game, designed to give people a joyful reason to gather. Familiar materials and everyday objects become part of a space that changes as visitors play, relax and move through it.

Throughout the festival, the Parlour will host game nights, workshops and communal dining, as well as reading sessions and vinyl DJ sets. The room comes into its own when people use it.

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

Jesse Butterfield plays with paper and steel in 'A Veiled Boundary'

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Hand-hammered stainless steel stools sit among lamps made from sewn handmade paper in Jesse Butterfield’s A Veiled Boundary, also at Brompton Design District.

For this curation, Butterfireld, brought together two bodies of work in one space, allowing visitors to examine and explore how each material is produced. The lamps themselves are developed with papermills to create handmade paper that behaves in its own unique, reactive way when folded and sewn. When lit, the shades truly reveal their range of texture and detailed seams. The steel bases are also handmade, hammered and potentially burnt until the curves and final shapes were curated perfectly. Collectively, the studio and pieces sit somewhere between furniture, sculpture and art.

Jamilah Rose-Roberts

A rewarding awards evening

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Earlier this week, we gathered at RH London to celebrate the four winners of the London Design Medals. Traditionally a snapshot of what is happening in design and the city's creativity, the Medals once again honoured multidisciplinarity and future-thinking, with Jonathan Anderson receiving the accolade within a room filled with representatives of London's creative industries. We found the words of Tristram Hunt, who introduced Anderson, particularly poignant, as he remembered that '10 years ago, when Jonathan set up the Loewe Craft Prize, he said he saw it as the three-dimensional antidote to the two-dimensional life that we're living on our screens, and those words from a decade ago seem so so prescient now.'

Rosa Bertoli

Wallpaper* tries a woodworking workshop

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Abstract forest installation ‘Wood for the Trees’ by AHEC, design studio Mitre & Mondays, and furniture maker Benchmark, is having a second life in London (its first iteration was at 3daysofdesign in Copenhagen in the summer). The magnificent woodworking piece celebrates timber and the ecosystems that provide it and is designed to be fully recycled. It uses timber offcuts which are typically not deemed suitable for use (but are perfectly fine, if not even better for their natural variation). Part of the presentation included a series of woodworking workshops which colleague Gabriel Annouka and I attended, putting our craft skills to the test by making a stool each out of red oak. Attendees witnessed a symbolic 'felling of a tree', whose planks were taken into a workshop to be cut to size, sanded, fitted together, glued, sanded again and perfected with natural oil. A great way to draw attention to our forests and their richness.

Ellie Stathaki

‘Afterimage’ at Monologue

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A walk through Marylebone led us to Monologue, where its ‘Afterimage’ exhibition has turned the showroom’s window display into a landscape of shifting reflections. Conceived by Monologue’s founder Pavel Klimczak and designed by Paraforma, the showcase features pieces by Tacchini, 6:AM, Paraforma, Paul Matter, Studio Douze Degrés and Henry Svendsen that explore light, memory and material. Among our favourites were a configuration of Mario Bellini’s voluminous ‘Le Mura’ sofa for Tacchini in dark chocolate-coloured leather, and new variations of 6:AM’s Murano glass side tables – including a golden-caramel version with an ombré effect, created by mixing Carrara marble powder into the glass. The entire presentation was reflected in an enormous circular stainless steel mirror, crafted in by Italian maker Mingardo. Polished from a clouded rim to a flawless core and raised on a gridded stainless steel platform, it is cleverly positioned to reflect the exhibited pieces while also catching the Monologue logo across the glass shopfront.

4 Portman Square, London W1H 6LD

Ali Morris

A perfect Pilates session

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We can't think of a better way to finish off a busy London Design Festival: testing Technogym’s new Reformer with a session led by Pilates instructor Ashlea McKee. The smooth movements of the reformer and tactile materials (in the new Sand Stone visual concept, conceived to bring warmth to the home gym) made the machine a perfect companion for a morning of slow movement.

Rosa Bertoli