Had a very enjoyable time at 100% design show in Earls Court last Friday. Went with a girl friend, Kim, who is the trend-forecasting queen!! She runs the UK arm of promostyl, they are the biggest colour and trend-forecasting agency in the whole wide world!! So I took total advantage of her knowledge and got to see the most fierce and cutting edge designs there.

Kim wants this white dog that is used to conceal all those irk-some tangled up cables that lurk behind your computer and TV. Very cute but as a cat lover really not my thing!

The exhibition was actually all a bit daunting because there really is an enormous amount to see. Honestly think it would take a couple of days to take it all in, there are just so many fab designers, loads of inspiration and so many things that I want for my own house.

Any way I’ll try and edit this to the things that really caught my eye and the things that Kim says are directional…
First we did 100% light. Absolutely my fave thing –lighting is so essential to any interior design. Major story here seems to be playing with scale.

{Huge anglepoise light by info@anglepoise.comThere were a lot of massively over-sized hanging and work lights as well as teeny little hanging shades in spun glass

An organic theme was developed by Dominic Bromley with the most amazing “Chandelier” fabricated from thousands of ceramic fish, which moved together like a gigantic white shoal.
francesbromley@scabetti.co.uk

Francis told me that she threaded every one of these fish onto nylon wire herself and then suspended it into a box filled with polystyrene balls for transportation. So, next time our transport guys complain about the amount of time and care we take with packing at http://sweetpeaandwillow.com/ I shall refer them to Francis!

Still on a fishy theme Tranlogue showed moulded acrylic in shapes inspired by jelly fish that glowed all over the surface.

Fabricated from an acrylic board. mailto:over.info@tranlogue.jp

We were both mesmerized by an installation by ambient space. They had a kind of light box that is a combination of a flat screen TV and a conventional photo. It had a picture of a pair of eyes that can be programmed to follow you round the room. This stand also showed a completely modern take on traditional wallpaper with an upright light box filled with a glowing wallpaper design.ambientspacedesign.com.

Tomoaki Yanagisawa [mail@harshcomush.] had some beautiful ‘almost chandeliers’ made with ping-pong balls—sounds mental but they gave off a subtle diffused light and worked really well when shown covering a ceiling.

Little dotty LED lights seem to be the way to go on the fashion front. They’ve been around for some time, used on a staircases or inset in walls or bath panels. What was new was using them behind solid glass panels made up of glass beads, which really allowed the light to cover a bigger expanse with solid colour using the minimum amount of led’s. Could be a bit disco for domestic use but I rather fancied the idea as a feature in a dull corridor.

http://www.beadlight.com/

Check out this uber chandelier by Sharon Marsten This is one for when I build my mansion; my own staircase would require considerable re- modelling to accommodate it.

But ooh the glamour…I want one!!!!
Meanwhile I shall have to be satisfied with the sweetpea & willow 10 arm black rain.
I think that’s enough for now. Will update about the futures exhibitors’ later.
Cheerio Jill xx

PS if you were the person who pointed out the massive hole in my tights…. Thanks,but I was making a style statement