Trent’s European Travel Diary – London Design Festival

Today Trent visits "horrible" London for the London Design Festival. While the weather might be a bit depressing, Trent made good use of his time and spent it enjoying the company of lots of talented and wonderful people. Sounds like a fair compromise! - Jenny x

Trent spent a week in London to exhibit his work at the London Design Festival with Australian Design contingent Matilda.  Pictured here with Julie Paterson of Cloth, Bill Granger (who opened the exhibition) and Brian Steendijk.

Top - Trent meeting with the owner of Mint, Lina Kanafani. Bottom - Trent's crazy pal Graham Grey.  Trent says "Graham Grey is notorious for doing things at design festivals that can not be discussed on blogs. You know what I am talking about Graham.".  Bottom right - Barclay's share bikes - "The new bike sharing system in London has been sponsored by a bank and a friend of a friend has decided that this isn't cool. Anyway, they made some stickers and gave them to us to distribute. We did our bit for the cause."

So I spent a few days in London for the Design Festival, partially to be there for the opening of Matilda, an exhibition of Australian work, but mostly to catch up with some old friends and family. I stayed with my old friend from Cofa Hollie White, who is a great shoe designer living and working in London now. I also caught up with the infamous Graham Grey, a graphic and object designer who is always entertaining. It was also very lovely to see miss Fiona (Fi Fi) Ransom, an amazing fashion designer from Sydney who is also living and working in London, so many wonderful people living is such a horrible city. Sorry, I really don't like London, I think its mostly the tube, but the weather doesn't help either. One of my most interesting days involved meeting with the owner of Mint, Lina Kanafani. Mint is a beautiful design store/gallery in South Kensington and Lina is a force to be reckoned with, kind of like the Rossana Orlandi of London. She showed me around, we had a coffee and talked about possibly working together on something, let's see how that goes. I scoured the London Design Festival and found one piece that I really liked at the V and A, but to be honest I couldn't find that much else that really took my eye, and it's not like I didn't try. I went to Established and Sons, Rabih Hage, the V and A Saatchi Gallery among many others. One thing that I did like was the top floor of Saatchi Gallery where Nendo had a show, along with a bunch of young British designers. Other than that, I just ate a lot, and my wallet will not be thanking me for that. - Trent

Saatchi gallery, a cheeky lamp by Nendo, and a stool is by Seongyong Lee made from cardboard tubes. "The joinery is beautiful" says Trent.

Trent musters up the enthusiasm to list a few good things about London!  A friendly Space invader spotted in Soho, Apple Strudel from a great little deli discovered in the old brewery on Brick Lane, and The V&A Gallery, where he spotted this odd little vessel by Rajesh Gogna -  "the most beautiful thing that I saw all week".  :)