Furniture in vogue

Like fellow design junkies, I’ve been counting down the days until London Design Festival (13-23 September) and London Fashion Week (LFW 14-19 September). One month, two great events - but I’m questioning fashion’s sometime dubious influence on the furniture industry.

While others continue to ponder the (very important) size zero campaign; what intrigues me most about LFW are the fashion designers like Marc Jacobs and Julien Macdonald who morph their well-tuned outfits into household products. For good or bad, household designer gear is a fast expanding consumer obsession.

Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein have been muscling into the interiors market for decades. Fashion in the home was once all about gaudy glitz, all very Versace’s Medusa head-stamped tea cups and branded beach towels.

Now it is less about logos and more about considered design, when done well, which is why it’s so depressing when it is done badly. Certain recent entrants into fashion for the home just slap their trademark appliqué onto a cushion - regrettably the cushion quality may not equal that of the clothing. The trick is weeding out these rogues to unearth the superior collections. Just like Kate Moss for Topshop is a natural fit, home fashion only thrives when the clothing brand translates logically into the home.

Full marks go to wedding dress designer Vera Wang’s collaboration with Wedgewood - wear the delicate dress and pop the fragile plates on your wedding list.

After 50 years of fashion, Rosita Missoni pledged that “the home is an extension of fashion”. Missoni Home succeeds where others fail because the signature zigzag printed furniture hits the same market; if you want the dress, chances are you’ll covet the tables. Similarly, Ralph Lauren Home is a triumph; I crave the elegant outfit and the sofa.

I’m the proud owner of an Allegra Hicks throw which covers my somewhat shabby sofa. Like Jacobs and Co., Hicks has tackled the home market with her personal style meaning we can buy into an imagined lifestyle which otherwise remains elitist. However pretty, I couldn’t justify blowing upwards of £300 on an Allegra Hicks kaftan that will hide in my wardrobe for most of the year but £178 on a wool throw that’s always on display? It’s an investment.

But the transition from clothing to coffee tables can be disheartening. Mulberry Home springs to mind. When I sling my (ludicrously heavy) Mulberry statement handbag over my shoulder, I feel rather chic but I’m indifferent to their furniture. Fusty and old-fashioned, Mulberry Home is light years away from their avant-garde fashion campaigns. Likewise, while Marc Jacobs’ glassware is beautiful, his soft furnishings seem a rash afterthought.

I quizzed Lulu Guinness as to why, 15 years ago, she went from whipping up handbags to satin bedspreads. “At the time, nobody else was doing embroidered sheets,” Lulu explained, “My bed linen sold better than my handbags.” Also riding on the wave for demand - customers wanted to buy his store fittings - Paul Smith now sells rugs and hand-painted crockery. Irish designer Orla Kiely just launched her first furniture collection at Heal’s.

I reckon the resurgence of wallpaper is influenced by today’s prints by fashion designers Barbara Hulanicki, Matthew Williamson and Celia Birtwell. Hulanicki told me last week, “I fell into interior design when Ronnie Wood asked me to design a nightclub for him in Miami in the late Eighties.”

Not content with earning millions from her day job, Helena Christensen runs an interior shop Butik in NYC. She designed a flexible stem flower lamp for Habitat VIP (very important products) alongside Manolo Blahnik (shoe horn), Sophie Dahl (dressing table) and Kate Winslet (secret box). Blahnik’s iconic shoe horn was a sellout; don’t we all want a bit of affordable Blahnik? By association, each product has a ready-made history and in its entirety, it’s an impressive range. But please, their one creation doesn’t make Winslet or Dahl a product designer.

While design students fight in their organic struggle for notoriety, celebrities shoot up the rungs of the interior ladder faster than we can say Christian Louboutin. But we mustn’t overlook the British design that emerges from our colleges.

What do the bona fide furniture designers make of the thorny relationship between content and brand? Sir Terence Conran obsesses that interior design is more than a fashion fad; what you buy for your home should be timeless, not the "here today, gone tomorrow" ethos of seasonal style.

The trend has come full circle; with the likes of interior designer Cath Kidston now selling dresses, home ware designers can give the fashionistas a run for their money. Maybe fashion designers will start showing at London Design Festival - of which more next week. But for now, it’s all about house couture. London Fashion Week is just a few days away and darling, it’s going to be just fabulous.

Annie Deakin is Acting Editor of mydeco.com, the website for home design

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