I was only able to take an hour or two to wander around Tent, as unwisely perhaps I had taken the ‘with kids’ option and after they had scrambled into the Nobody and Co Bibliochaise and been asked to keep their feet off the furniture (quite rightly, I hasten to add) we all felt it was time to go. I have to say the Bibiochaise is a winner: very comfortable, it can take loads of books (clearing those shelves for your well-chosen objets d’art, perhaps) and you will always have a book to hand.
I was also rather taken with the murals made by Surface View which I thought would be fun for a child’s room, particularly if you happened to have a space with a lot of bare brickwork: they have a new product which adheres to the bricks and looks as though it was painted on. There are vintage and retro designs for kids as well as images from the Natural History Museum and the Maritime Museum which you can view online as room sets or customise for blinds and walls.
There weren’t a huge amount of eco-friendly products aimed at kids, but I loved the ‘Pop-Out Wardrobe’ by Christopher Ridley (it saves on manufacturing waste by reusing cut-outs as hangers) and the beautiful sustainably produced furniture by Blue Green and Co. In terms of sustainable design, the Meltdown Chairs by Tom Price were a striking re-use of plastic piping and other materials – he’s even used discarded polyester clothing and rope. PVC and polypropylene won’t biodegrade for many years so he is one of the designers who have taken up the challenge of trying to find ways to save them from landfill. In the case of the Meltdown chairs a seating area is melted into the objects. My kids liked these as well, and spent quite a lot of time trying them out.
Finally, Product of Your Environment, whose “I Love My poNY” T Shirt is available at Mimimyne, had some wonderful new products, mostly for grown-ups, including pillow cases with television screens (“Eight Hours of Fame”) and picture frames (“Sleeping Beauty”) printed on them – so if you’ve ever wanted to be an artist’s model or appear on TV, now you can…
