Pimlico Road, Belgravia – London Craft Week 2021 Preview

Cox London’s north London workshop is a hub of rare skill, from metalwork and gilding to stonecarving and glassmaking. A taste of the process behind the products will be in the Ebury Street showroom with the showing of a short film made by Alun Callender that traces the making of The Voyager’s Chair (pictured), whose dramatically twisting bronze frame and hand-stitched upholstery are typical of Cox London’s art-led approach to design. This is accompanied by a series of soulful portraits of hands belonging to the company’s makers and other staff, also by Callender.

Luxury tableware and glassware brand Bonadea recently opened a sumptuous new showroom on Pimlico Road, where flamboyant, maximalist-leaning pieces from the likes of Christian Lacroix and Ginori 1725 can be found next to contemporary crystal by London-based jeweller and silversmith Shona Marsh. As well as daily workshops led by founder and creative director Gemma Martinez de Ana, the showroom is hosting a series of artisan demonstrations; Olivia Faire, whose work is pictured, will be showing off her marquetry skills on the afternoon of Wednesday 6 October.

It takes more than 100 steps to bring a Carl Hansen & Søn CH24 chair (more commonly known as the Wishbone) into existence. On 7 October, one of the company’s skilled craftspeople from Denmark will be in the Pimlico Road showroom to demonstrate part of that process – the hand-weaving of the chair’s seat in paper cord. Hans Wegner’s chair was designed in 1950 and has been in production ever since, but Carl Hansen & Søn has shown a remarkable capacity to reinvent this stone-cold classic with various colours and finishes, and a chair in a nature-inspired muted blue hue will be on show.

Ochre Wild is furniture, lighting and accessories brand Ochre’s foray into flooring, and at London Craft Week its showroom will be dedicated to these new pieces and the skill that goes into making them. Channelling the same aesthetic of “discreet glamour” as the rest of its portfolio, the rugs are made entirely by hand, from the yarn-making and dying to the intricate weaving through to the finishing, and the vegetal dyes used result in some incredibly rich hues, including aqua, dark pink and turmeric yellow. Look out too for Ochre’s new Drifter light, hand-carved in oak and inspired by a piece of driftwood.

In the wider neighbourhood, make a stop-off at 6-7 Motcomb Street, where Sarah Myerscough Gallery has a pop-up space away from its permanent riverside home in Barnes. The show here, entitled Outside In, is populated by designer-makers who all use organic, sustainable materials in their work, from timber to woven willow. Admire Marc Ricourt’s vessels made from white painted beech (above left) or Jonathan Keep’s otherworldly Mandelbulb urns, 3D-printed in clay (above right). An accompanying talks series sees three of the makers – Eleanor Lakelin, Nic Webb, and Max Bainbridge – discuss their relationship with the natural world.