My first day at the London Design Festival was spent around the Brompton Design District, which is an area around the South Kensington tube station, encompassing landmarks such as the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Royal College of Art.

In general, the LDF is not as large as the Milan Design week, and each exhibit seemed to be quite spread apart, so one would really have to have a good pair of walking shoes in order to complete the tour. Even in the Brompton Design District, there were still limited openings, but I did run into one exhibition that was quite enticing. This was the Double Dutch: Appetites and Emotions exhibit created by the Flower Council of Holland.

The exhibit was divided into two sections, the first was “Appetite”, which pairs objects such as china and antiques with flowers to entice visitors. My favorite was actually the “Emotions” section, in which six different bouquets were displayed representing different emotions: sympathy, love, happiness, anger, jealousy and gratitude. My personal favorite is the anger bouquet (see above). The flowers just scream out anger, doesn’t it? The Emotions bouquets were created by Dutch designers Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe and curated by Jane Withers, while the Appetite was created by horticultural trend expert Lisa White with Graham Hollick.

I first came across London-based designer Haidee Drew’s designs at the Salone del Mobile in Milan this year, and am delighted to preview her latest designs will be shown at Designersblock during the London Design Festival.

One of the concepts that she will be introducing is a series of decor that complement with wallpaper. The image below is just one of those concepts: a petal dish that is displayed as a part of the design. There are also wall hooks that will do just the same. There is no pricing on this yet, as these are just concepts at this point.

If you are in London, do stop by and see these (and more) for yourself! Click on the Designersblock link below for more information.

Ordning & Reda is still probably one of my favorites for the design and variety, while the French company Clairefontaine is for the paper quality. For the holiday season, Ordning & Reda is releasing a series of velvet products including the notebooks and diaries pictured below. There are also velvet bags to complete the look.

However, as Ordning & Reda’s store inside the Bodum store in New York City closed at the end of last year, it is virtually impossible to buy these products here in the US. I was told that a store is in the works, slated to open (perhaps) early next year in Manhattan, so stay tuned.

Now back to the London Design Festival.

From 13-23 September, the sixth London Design Festival will showcase a diverse range of exhibitions, installations and events all over the city. This event is also the premier design event in the UK. We will be bringing you coverage during the festival as well as some previews starting next week. So please bookmark our site, or sign up for our email newsletter to receive alerts!

I was recently informed that Wallpaper* launched Wallpaper* Selects, a series of limited-edition photographic prints from its archives. Each print available on the website are produced in editions of 10, 20 or 30, and signed and numbered by the artists. The first collection features photographers Jonathan de Villiers, Mauricio Alejo, Jonathan Frantini, Christopher Griffith, Stefan Ruiz, Daniel Stier, Benedict Redgrove and Joël Tettamanti. Pricing for the prints are between between £290 and £990 (or about US$580 and US$1980).

(note that normally I would crop a photo so that it would fit into the metrosnapshot frame, but that wouldn’t do this photo justice — so here it is in its entirety)

For those of you that are avid readers of Wallpaper*, do check out the link below and see for yourself. The site features a scroll-over function that allows you to see details of each print before you buy. Remember, this is just the first in a series to come!