Blog entries tagged with Exhibitions

For a man whose enigma dictates that he is rarely seen in person - even at his own shows, Martin Margiela must be one of the most prolific designers so far this year.
20, a new show running throughout the summer at the beautiful Somerset House in London celebrates 20 years of one of the most influential designers to have emerged from Antwerp's Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
Curated by the Antwerp's own Mode Musuem, which itself hosts the awsome Svart (featured a few weeks ago), this exhibition is in a way dominated by the colour white and its various shades and guises used by Margiela across his extensive body of work both in fashion and more recently in his design work.
Capturing Margiela's vision is no easy feat but the Somerset House show incorporates installations, films, photography and visuals to demonstrate the deconstructivist approach so familier to fans of the designer's work.
20 underlines the power of Margiela's artistic vision and the resulting garments, the collections and indeed the attention to detail in couture and design.
Margiela plays an important role in the progression of fashion, from its power-dressing, dominating silhouettes of the 80's, as he developed his own visual language; one based on  quality and clarity of thought, hyper-intelligent use of textiles and cutting-edge techniques.
It's a must-see for serious fans of fashion,colour and form, a celebration of a man of subtlety and depth who lets his work in do the talking in the most advanced monochromatic palettes in contemporary design.

20 runs until 5 September, Somerset House, London.

Fancy a peek at what happens when the world's leading colour system for design teams up with the best contemporary trend forecasting studio? Well, if you're in London during this year's design festival you can take a gander at our collaboration with Global Color Research, textile company Kvadrat and Modus Furniture.
UK-based Modus has created a real eye-catcher of an installation for this year's Design Festival in which 36 PLC chairs by PearsonLloyd will appear in one-off colours plucked from Global Color Reserch's Mix Trend forecast. Each chair will be upholstered by Kvadrat while we have taken care of the colour matching to ensure that the PLC frames will be exactly the right colour from top to bottom.
The chairs will be auctioned off during the festival with lucky winning bidders taking their own bespoke PLC into their homes.
If you are reading and want to know more about our colour matching service simply drop us a line. Don't forget that NCS Colour can give a precise notation to any colour on any material, surface or application.

Visit www.modusfurniture.co.uk for more information on the installation.

Following the previous news about our collaboration with Modus at this year's London Design Festival we thought we would highlight a few of this year's key events and attractions.

Over the years, London Design Festival (or LDF as many refer to it) has been growing substantially. This year three new Design Districts have been added to the list, making the festival a true measure of the creativity the city has to offer. So this year visitors are really spoilt for choice. Pick from the high-class chic of Brompton, go central and stay around Covent Garden, head to the delights of Mayfair and Fitzrovia Creative, pop East to the edgy Shoreditch Design Triangle or voyage west for The Dock and home of the mighty Tom Dixon.
There are, apparently, over 240 different events spread across the city, with full details on the LDF website. Look out for the special installations (like last year's incredible Tournament by Jaime Hayon - pictured here) on your way around town as well.
Or, if you're looking to trace our own path during your trip here are our plans.

Centrally, we'll be heading first to Trafalgar Square, which will be taken over by huge robots from Audi's production line will be creating laser-patterns in the sky. From there take a short walk to the Aram store which always has some interesting work on display in its top-floor gallery space. Doubling back on yourself, hop on the Bakerloo Line from Charing Cross and go a couple of stops to Carnaby Street, where the inventive Beyond the Valley store will literally be re-inventing itself. Seeing as you are in the neighborhood, why not pop into nearby Libertys where Swedish superbrand Acne will be showing off its new Malmsten-inspired furniture range in some very interesting colourways and uphostery finishes. By this time you're no doubt feeling rather up-market so nip up to Marylebone High Street (number 58) for an invigorating installation by Kate Maestri who is bound to capture your imagination with her brutalist-architecture-inspired glass installation. By our estimations it's time for some much-needed refreshments so stroll back towards the center of town and Mayfair (Duke Street no. 2-3) where Established & Sons are hosting Design Against the Clock; a series of live design performances from some of the biggest names in the business. While you're there see if you can talk them into giving you a ticket or two for their evening events - always some of the more vibrant and well-attended (exclusive in other words).

2) 100% Design. Obviously, if you're looking for design in abundance then you will probably end up at 100% Design sometime during your stay. We'd recommend choosing Saturday, where our on Ellen Gremo will be speaking about colour in design as part of the seminar schedule. We'll also be on hand during 100% Design, sharing a stand with our partners Global Color Research. Come and say hello and see how we can help you improve the way you use colour in your work. We'd also recommend a trip around the satellite 100% shows including 100% Futures and 100% Materials. Although there are hundreds of brands exhibiting, one of the most exciting has to be Portuguese furniture company Boca Do Lobo whose take on colour is incredible while its designs blend high-quality with a really dynamic creative flair.

3) East London plays host to a number of shows including Tent (go on a colder day as the venue has a tendency to heat up) where the work of hundreds of new and young designers will be on display. Tent also has a really great 'interactive' section which last year was one of LDF's clear highlights. A quick glance of LDF's area map (found in the small red books available at all events) will show you that Lee Broom is nearby on 93 Rivington Street. Broom was an undisputed success at last year's festival and, on the strength of his visuals alone, his latest installation One Light Only will keep his name on the lips of all who visit him. Ask your legs how they're feeling. If there's still some life in them, retrace your way back down Rivington Street to The Tramshed Event, which might possibly be one of this year's most exciting event. The list of exhibitors alone at this old building are enough to make the design aficionado weep for at least an hour. Plus it's got one of the most interesting set of talks and discussions including one on bicycles, which will be lovely.
Don't forget to pop to Modus as well, for a peek at our collaboration with Modus Furniture, PearsonLloyd and Kvadrat.

4) No trip to LDF would be complete without a trip to Designersblock. Curators, Rory Dodd and Piers have supported young design, fresh concepts and a free-spirited take on design for years now. No trip to London would be complete with a trip to Designersblock and this year the chaps will be down near London's South Bank. Check out the website for further information and to register. 

It's going to be a great adventure for the visitor, whether you are a seasoned design lover or simply want to soak up shapes, sounds, forms and colours.

Stockholm played host to Hem & Villa, the biggest show for Nordic interiors (but then every interiors show which opens its doors in Scandinavia says something like this) or something similar.
While some of its content was a little dubious, with lots of building materials and companies with detergents to clean your windows quicker than ever before, there was a host of really well put together trend installations, discussions, seminars and stands all dripping with the beauty of NCS Colour.
Upon entering, Svenska Moderådet (the Swedish Fashion Council) had created a huge display dedicated to the beauty of wood. Beautiful it was too, with lots to take in, small details, a mix of established and young designers and a scattering of crows for good measure.
Following our trip to London for the Design Festvial it was a good reinforcement of our opinion that one of the main colour trends for the close of this year is in fact an absence of colour in favour of letting the natural beauty of the grain do the work. That's not to say that colour still be used to lift a design, far from it - many of the best work from London used a very low-chromatic accent or uphostery. It was very very effective. See this post on the epically talented young Swedish upstarts RVW for a little more on how to deploy subtle colour against woods.
Finally peeling away from the wonder of wood, we strolled to another of Hem & Villa's key installations by Paula Malm of Trend Union (an affiliate of the mighty Li Edelkoort). 
Comprising of four colour trends, each notated with NCS Notations, it was a wonderul installation which had the crowds enthralled. The installation was a really good example of how to get the best out of displaying colour, setting each palette against a complementary grey background. Malm also showed just how incredibly flexible and accurate NCS as a system is. Opting to move away from the Standard NCS Collection, each colour was annotated specifically for the installation as you can see in the images, proving that, once again, NCS is the only colour system capable of giving any colour its own discriptive reference.
We opted not to settle on listening to the trend seminars for too long to ease around the corner from where they were being held. It was here that designer Synnöve Mork had undertaken another installation. Citing the old favourite, 'The kitchen is the new living room,' cliché, Kitchen Life was full of interesting uses of materials including zinc and concrete, interplaying with classic and new utensils and concepts. There was also a huge version of one of the pages from an NCS Index which was a lovely surprise.
So, yes, it was a little small, the lighting was awful and the floor could have had a little more love but Hem & Villa carried the torch for colour and its power to lift a space to another level. See more images from Hem & Villa Below.

Next week Formex's Spring edition opens for business on the 20th, here in Stockholm's Stockholmmässan.
This Spring, Formex looks fresher than in previous outings with a host of new developments and activities to keep the visitor occupied including a new trend book, new exhibition areas and larger showcase area for young designers.
Today, announcements were made that the Young Design Lounge would feature an installation from recent graduate, Karin Robling (pictured). Her installation will create a space in which 60's Swedish design meets the colours and atmosphere of India, with the visitor treated to a visual feast of colour, materials and the unexpected. 
We'll post some images of the the installation and conclusions from Formex after the show itself - complete with the latest colour trends emerging this Spring. 
To register for Formex click here.