5 décor trends to watch from the London Design Festival

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Every fall, design lovers descend on London for the vast London Design Festival. Trade shows sprout up all across town and local design districts throw open their doors for general revelry. It’s one big design-centric party, but through it all, five hot design trends stood out amongst the rest.

1. Copper is the new brass.
You may have thought brass is the perfect metal finish, but not so. The next time you’re in the market to revamp your space, think copper. This vibrant shade was plentiful in sinks and Casamatera introduced a copper cooktop for its new Cave Kitchen unit at the trade show, Tent London. Also, at Tent were some terrific copper lighting fixtures by ALP and a wonderful set of copper fireplace tools by blacksmith James Price.

2. Never say never! Colored bath fixtures are back.
Bath company Perrin & Rowe introduced it’s new Rockwell collection of colored sinks and tubs, soon to be available in six hues in the US through Rohl. Great news for us here in the states who are faced with an older bathtub or sink that features working fixtures that aren’t white—Don’t rush to rip them out just yet! With careful tile and wall covering selections, colored fixtures could wind up being the latest in design trends. This green hue was especially attractive to me.

3. Break out the good China.
With the great volume of tabletop introductions seen at the London Design Festival, it’s obvious that entertaining with style is in vogue. At Decorex, Bodo Sperlein introduced a beautifully contemporary line that had an elegant spareness. Back at Tent London, porcelain firm Melody Rose featured new tabletop designs with surrealist edge and Sevak Zargarian launched dishware that resembled terrazzo marble.

4. Know when to fold them:
Many vendors used origami-like folding as a design detail. This sofa by Alghalia Interiors was interesting and aesthetically pleasing to me. Tracey Tubb created origami-folded wall panels from a single sheet and sells them as singular pieces or as full wall art. Artist, Sarah Tran explored multiple folding techniques for sculptural objects, making geometric shapes come to life.

5. Wallpaper as art.
Can’t afford a gallery wall?  There are plenty of wallpaper introductions that provide all of the decoration you need. Deborah Bowness is a local U.K. designer whose style is reminiscent of street art graffiti. I especially enjoyed her highly colorful paper that called to mind a super-sized artist palette.

Perhaps the biggest news in wallpaper, however, is Fromental’s introduction of a printed—as opposed to a hand-painted—version of its acclaimed chinoiserie paper, making the dream of a chinoiserie lined room much more accessible for modern day, neo-traditionalists.

Do we have you itching to redecorate yet?