My review of Lifeinstyle Sydney this weekend

I had a brilliant time at life instyle this weekend, seeing all the clever products, homewares, textiles, prints, fabrics, cushions, jewellery that artists & designers all over Australia and worldwide create. As usual there was a lot to see, but I thought I would focus on a few of my favourites – can’t wait to buy/resell/recommend them for future projects…

First up Bholu. Well I got to meet the bubbly Jodie Fried in person and she was so inspirational and spent at least 20 fabulous minutes chatting about her life, her creative ventures and her schools in India. (If your read this Jodie – thank you so much!) See my other articles on Bholu textiles and her new range of wallpapers from Porters Paints which were on display! Nice!

OK next up textile designers that caught my eye was Tinker from Melbourne. They had a lovely range of hand printed items in subdued lemons, taupe and blues, both floral and geometric prints. They seemed more than happy to please and will do customised and one off sales of items for designers with cushions, throws, pouffes, wallpapers and napery items in their range:

There was a lot of bed linen and importers, makers of lovely throws, covers and bedspreads, but those that really caught my eye are from Bianca Lorenne of New Zealand. She makes a range which is high quality, French inspired and the fabrics are so soft and tactile that you want to buy them all – but you better be quick as they are all limited editions. Nice creams, whites, pale blue-grey. Very feminine but not in a flowery way that a man would groan at.

Also from New Zealand architect Andrew Johnston of Thatch was a great range of flat packed light shades…

Very quaint but also convenient to send to friends overseas as presents! Lovely for kids rooms.

Now let’s not overlook the obvious style leaders; those Scandinavians who had a lot of beautiful products and designs everywhere – how can such a small country have so many great products and designers? Or is it just that those northern European designs, lots of white and black, bright colours, clean lines appeal to me most? Things that caught my eye:

There was a lovely range of practical, functional yet fashionable products on sale from Nordic Designs Home including their Monster Collection by the clever Karin Mannerstahl whose bright colours and bold prints brighten up home all over Europe:

Jacquard fabrics by the clever Swedish designer HildaHilda. I loved her prints because they are bold but not gaudy but can adapt to both children or adults rooms. The colours are happy but lots of tinted greens, reds, blues make them versatile in the home…

 

HildaHilda distributed by Coris who also sell the bright coloured weaves of Barefoot Linen by Sri Lankan designer Barabara Sansoni.

Last but not least, the sustainable, renewable range of wonderful kitchen and home use products from Bambu. made from you guessed it - bamboo by New York designers but crafted in China:

Read the bambu blog if you want more information.

So that’s my line up of favourites from life instyle. Download the life instyle ebook to see the full range of items on display.

If you went to life instyle sydney or plan to go to life instyle Melbourne, I would love to hear about your favourite designers and suppliers too.

IKEA for Christmas – fa la la la!!

Not sure where my brilliant idea of driving all the way to IKEA in Homebush just before Xmas came from, add one hangover and salt it with a torrential downpour and a smothering of mad Xmas!

After 5 hours (still not sure how that happened - wandering around and checking all the new items) and ended up with 3 trolleys worth of stuff I am not 100% sure I need plus some very cute Xmas pressies for kids (their kids section was brilliant) and generally a whole lot of funky homewares and home furnishings that I simply must have to have! But what really excited me was the Ikea Textiles section!

I don’t remember there being so much of it and for prices as low as $9.99 a metre (actually as low as $3.49) you can’t really beat that. Lots of bold designs, made from 100% cotton, Scandinavian designers many of them I have never heard of – very marimekko, bold colours, simplified motifs, animals, trees and nature prints, with a retro feel to them … Having my camera handy I whipped out a few pics:


I love them. I can see lots of inspirational home decorating with these fabrics. They even had a cutting station and lots of people around to help you. A huge range too. Check out the ikeafans website with lots of great ideas of things to make with Ikea fabric.
Will need to have a better look, but after the silly season once I have recovered from the last experience!!

Ode to Irresistible Fabrics

Don’t you just love textiles? Browsing in stores picking up odds and ends of pieces of hand printed fabric, a bolt here a scrap there. I love to touch them, look at them, stack them. Well, thanks to the internet and my visit to Life in Style, I have discovered so many talented designers making wonderful fabrics, so this post is dedicated to them.
Bird Textiles – thinks about the environment from her Byron Bay studio and creates stylish fabrics, homewares, stationery, umbrellas and more. Shibori in Chippendale – creates a range of handmade, Japanese inspired silk fabrics as well as screen printed and digitally created fabrics and homewares.

 

Stylish fabrics from Surface Art – produced into garments and homewares and all Australian made and printed. They sell fabric by the metre for up to $88 and even little packs of offcuts. What home is complete without some Scandinavian retro print from my Bondi neighbour Funkis. Their fabrics are quite expensive, anything from $90 - $250 per metre, but they are quite sturdy so can be used for many decorating purposes.

Of course my favourite most inspirational read ever was the story of Bholu designer Jodie Freid who not only designed her own fabrics and homewares which are hand emboidered by women in India, but she has also set up her own not for profit building pre-schools for disadvantaged children in India, called the Anganwadi Project. Read this article on Dynamic Business to see what a great entrepreneur she is and to be inspired.

A feature of fabric would be incomplete without a reference to Marimekko from Finland. I do love those northern Europeans, with their clean, crisp distinctive style that is both modern and retro at the same time.

I’ve found it hard to find their fabrics in Australia. If you are lucky enough to be in Finland, Sweden, Germany or the UK, you can visit a Marimekko shop. There are a whole bunch of suppliers of the products in Australia but I have not personally stumbled across a place to buy fabric by the metre. If you know where to buy fabrics in Australia, let me know. But check out their cool 2009 Christmas catalogue.
I could prattle on forever, but if you want to see a whole bunch of great fabrics in one place, checkout Funky Fabrix. They have a whole bunch of fabrics from designers all over. Check out some of my faves: Monaluna, Joel Dewberry, Saffron Craig, Michael Miller…
And they have a 10% discount right now on all orders over $100.
I could go on… but I will save it for some other time.
Drop me a note about your favourite textiles designer or fabric haunt.

Swedish Design

Great post on Decor8 about Swedish Design which then led me to Emma's blog from Stockholm - also full of great inspirational homes and images. I am going retro furniture hunting today. I haven't pottered around the Bondi furniture store lately. They often have some good stuff if you really poke around. Check out this hus & hem photo stream. My favourite is the blue one 2nd down - not so much the colour, though I like that it is bold, but more the way the room is styled.