Saturday in Design | Sydney, 2011.

Another year and yet another Saturday in Design is behind us. This annual trade event was held in Sydney last weekend (19th & 20th August) with showrooms buzzing with design industry professionals on the hunt for the latest in local and international products. Although the focus of the day is mostly on new furniture, lighting, finishes and fittings, it has to be said that this highly social day is just as much about eating, drinking and chatting. (Seriously, what is it with designers and their love of food and beverages? It’s incredible.)

So, what did I think of the whole event? Well, I thought it had some good things going for it… although… to be perfectly honest, I think I am officially completely ruined by Milan and have since turned into a real design wanker with unrealistically high expectations. Poo. This year SiD had 5 precincts, 36 locations and only 9 hours to see it all, which made it virtually impossible to get to everything in a single day. For someone who compulsively feels the need to see and do as much as possible, this caused a bit of a problem.

Top – entry to one of SiD warehouse spaces off Bourke St in Surry Hills. Bottom – little bit of yarn bombing in front of InterfaceFLOR showroom next to Central.

Now, I think that some special mentions are in order. Here we go –

+ HASSELL for their epic efforts with the most amount of Projects this year. Seriously – were you guys doing anything else in the last few months? I think I counted five installation in total – is that right? Anyway, what an epic effort.
+ Alex and Andria for their clever branding of Alexandria precinct. Loved it to bits, including their fun graphics and posters. 10 points.
+ Chipp N Dale (as in Chippendale). Yeah, well… thought this was lame and seemed like a blatant copy of Alex and Andria. Why?
+ Tongue n Groove for The Best Bag of the day. Hands down. We all know how important this is, don’t we? I so wanted one but didn’t end up getting it. Sad.
+ Baxter Shop for being my favourite (new to me) showroom. What a cool space and I can’t believe I’ve never been there before. Terrible Muriel.
+ Launch Pad for using yellowtrace (paper) for their branding this year (hooray!) including a little installation moment at the Living Edge showroom. Photos below.

Ok, that about sums it up. Oh, and my top improvement suggestion for 2012 – iPhone app with maps, routes, locations, key events etc. Handbooks are too heavy to carry and not-so-good for the planet.

x dana

My Saturday in Design started last Tuesday with a little preview at Stylecraft. Some of the new things I liked are Tacchini sofa and armachair (top image); solid timber local table, benches and stool (middle left); Tacchini timber chair (middle right) and Walter Knoll coffee table (bottom image).

Friday morning kicked off with a fantastic (and delicious) breakfast event hosted by Great Dane – brilliant, young and inspiring UK industrial designer Benjamin Hubert in conversation with Belle’s Editor Neale Whitaker. 

Benjamin designs furniture and lighting and works with major international manufacturers from Europe and Asia. His design philosophy is based on “a collaboration of materials, process and simplicity”. Fascinating young designer (he is only 27 years old) who spoke with such conviction, clarity, focus and maturity well beyond his years. This young man is going places. 

Next door to Great Dane local young local designers were exhibiting their products. Above is the work of DesignByThem (you can read my recent interview with them by clicking here). Those little letterboxes in the bottom image are super beautiful!

Also exhibiting in the same space was a young local firm Under. Hut pendant on the left is particularly lovely (and it would look beautiful paired up with one of the letter boxes above I reckon!)

Still Friday. I was greeted by a hostess with a mostess at the Corporate Culture showroom – ha! A few of my favourite scenes from the showroom, including the lovely green Wishbone chairs around the glass table. Gorgeous.

Poltrona Frau hotness at Corporate Culture.

My favourite “styling moment” – showroom wall was painted to match FAVN sofa catalogue. How ghay – I LOVED IT! By the way, how gorgeous is FAVN? You may remember I blogged about it after Milan in this post. 

Designer Rugs has a little space out the back of Corporate Culture showroom.

Upstairs at Corporate Culture – love the rug by HAY on the left, and CalaBash from Lightyears on the right. Yes!

Still at Corporate Culture. I know, I know – it’s totally time to move on. But what can I do – the showroom was looking sexier than sex. Their furniture and accessories were even colour blocking hard, and you guys know how much I love that.

Thonet had a little garage-like space in Chippendale, showcasing timber chairs in both raw and finished states. They also had a movie projection showing one of the factories in Europe and their manufacturing process. Simple and really effective.

It’s still Friday and we are now at Poliform showroom where Rugs Carpet & Design were showcasing some of their rugs. I thought this was a fantastic pairing as both the furniture and the rugs benefited from the presence of each other. Does that sentence even make sense? Anyway, you know what I mean.

Ok, last bit of Friday now. This is from the fab Hub showroom in Surry Hills which hosted a yummy British high tea (and where I consumed so much sugar that I was later close to passing out from a sugar-induced coma. Well played. But how could I resist – everything looked so bloody delicious!) Anyway, I am in love with ‘Agnes, Edith & Maude’ bookshelves and ‘Oscar’ sofa from SCP (top image).

More goodies from SCP – ‘Oscar’ leather armchair (swoon), ‘ Sticks’ side table, ‘Josiah’ pendant light + a lovely rug by Donna Wilson for SPC ( top image). Cute-as-a-button ‘Molly’ stool from SCP (bottom image).

Ok. It’s finally Saturday. As in Hey Hey it’s Saturday (in Design). Bad. Sorry. Images from my new favourite showroom – Baxter Shop in Alexandria.

More from Baxter Shop. They had a sweet little gelato truck in the showroom.  Vintage cars & scooters are a part of their permanent collection.

And again – Baxter Shop in Alexandria. Such a fantastic space.

Tsar carpet showroom in Alexandria.

One of the more impressive moments at SiD was this installation at a warehouse behind Kezu’s new showroom in Alexandria. The installation was done in collaboration with HASSELL and Point of View and it consisted of stacked cardboard boxes with streams of light and smoke coming through. 

More images of this impressive installation which showcased the Pattern family of outdoor furniture (by Arik Levy for Emu). That’s me talking to Alex and Andria poster boy – Alex. I mean Owen. He was explaining how they put the whole installation together with scissor lifts etc. Massive effort but it was well worth it. (Btw Owen, is that a belt around your waist or are you just happy to see me? Hahaha!)

Still at Kezu – at the end of the installation, in front of the Red Bull bar, they had a projection wall which displayed whatever people wanted to write on one of the iPads. I was handed one to write on, so… you know… I just had to do it!! Bellow is a better view of the Pattern chair which is formed from a singe sheet of steel.

Space showroom was beautiful as always. Top left – new outdoor chairs from Edra. Super colourful and fun. Bottom image is of Kartell’s classic storage unit Componobili, which is available in this new colour.

Back in Redfern, I was loving this Hose Wheel by Gordon Tait at TAIT showroom.

Next door to TAIT, Great Dane had a bunch of activities going on such a live paper chording (top left image – except, it was clearly break time when this photo was taken). The lovely and crazy talented Suzie Stanford, who I’ve been playing e-mail tag with and been dying to meet for ages, was making various bits and pieces with leather string and cork.

More gorgeous Scandinavian goodness at Great Dane.

Living Edge Studio in Surry Hills – image of the Project by Woods Bagot & Woven Image.

Living Edge had a mini display of Estabished & Sons latest products released in Milan earlier this year (see my post about it right here). Bottom image of one of my personal favourite little moments – yellowtrace paper installation for Launch Pad. Hooray!

Some images from Kvadrat Maharam showroom in Surry Hills. Top image of breathtakingly beautiful ‘Deconstructed Rose’, a traditional floral needlepoint transformed through a modern, pixilated scale. Extreme love alert!! Bottom image of Maharam Digital Project wallpaper which I previously blogged about here.

Euroluce showroom on Hill St. Top image of wästberg lighting range. Love.

More from Euroluce. Spot those killer Tongue n Groove bags I was going on about before.

Hmm… where should we go next?

Jardan shared a space with Light Project at Luxe Studios which was a lovely space with a fantastic feel, filled with many beautiful objects and slammed-full-of people (hence the lack of decent photos). Top images shows the new Vista sofa in raspberry (super comfy) and retro style Illuka sideboard. Bottom left – Jardan’s new Jarvis chair. Bottom right – I can’t remember now. Boo!

Wowee! This was a HASSELL installation at InferfaceFLOR showroom at Central. This Project was all about up-cycling (just like everything seems to be at the moment – up-cycling is the new black!) 

At Schiavello showroom in Surry Hills with some jokers. Altbough the photos don’t do it justice, Schiavello showcased yet another impressive installation by HASSELL. Hey, I think this is it. We are done! Phew. Thank God, cause I’m tired after this post.

[All photos © yellowtrace.]