Kara O’Reilly: The insider
You can’t avoid China at the moment. What with the new Saatchi Gallery opening with The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art (www.saatchi gallery.com), the China Now festival, with seven months of events throughout the UK (www.chinanow.org.uk), and the Beijing Olympics in August, Chinese artists and designers are making their presence felt wherever you look.
To get a real sense of modern Chinese design, there are two places you should make a special effort to get to: the V&A, for its huge China Design Now exhibition, covering everything from graphics to fashion, architecture and furniture (March 15-July 13), and Liberty, which is running a selling show to tie in with the V&A themes (until May 31). Pieces on show and for sale will include perky propaganda print-influenced tin cups and plates (cup with lid, £11, and plate, £14; from www.vandashop.com) and gorgeous silk-dressed wooden chairs by Design MVW (£380 per pair, from Liberty). Or pop into Dover Street Market to pick up some of World Archive’s fun Mao cushions and Chinese mask bottle openers (from £22, and cushions, £48 each; 020 7518 0680).
If you prefer a more traditional take on the theme, Fromental’s glorious chinoiserie hand-painted and hand-embroidered silk wall panels and papers are based on 18th-century designs and made in Jiangsu province, and look as fabulous as they sound (from £470 per square metre for a part-embroidered design, to order; www.fromental.co.uk).
Moving away from China, but still showing plenty of eastern promise, the furniture company Red Lacquer is the brainchild of a mother-and-daughter duo, Tereza Prego and Joana de Noronha, who marry oriental references, surfaces and colours with a more slick, uptown aesthetic, resulting in fab statement pieces such as the Soho Flower Occasional Table (£435; www.redlacquer.co.uk).
PRIZE EFFORT
The Design Museum has replaced its annual Designer of the Year award with the all-new Brit Insurance Designs of the Year. The rejig will allow it to showcase more contenders from more countries, and cover more categories: product, furniture, graphics, architecture, fashion, interactive and transport. Deyan Sudjic, the museum’s director, says the intention is “to make this the most authoritative international design award in the world”.
For a useful review of what’s new in the world of design, and to see how trends will affect our lives, visit the museum, where the 100 shortlisted designs are on show until April 27. Tuesday sees the announcement of the individual category winners and on March 18 the overall victor will get the gong.
Some of the designs I am rooting for include Thomas Heatherwick’s East Beach Café, Yves Béhar’s $100 laptop, Ron Arad’s Wavy chair, Anthony Dickens’s Fifty table light and the Paris Vélib bicycle project. The inclusion of the extension of the congestion-charge zone in London will no doubt raise a few eyebrows.
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