September is one of my favorite time of year in London. The city is buzzing with exhibitions and events : It is the London Design Festival.
Every year, the galleries, workshops, warehouses and small studios open their door for one week to show you what the London creative scene has been up to.

This year was twice as exciting as a few of my friends were taking part and that meant my week was packed with exhibition openings.

To open the festivities, I popped down to Deptford to have a look at my dear photographer friend Virginie Litzler new exhibition of photographs : Body Material.

Virginie is the photographer that shot my upcoming Volcom capsule collection in Barcelona and she was exhibiting a collection of large scale photographs she took while we were away and in between 2 mojitos.

I love the set design she orchestrated to showcase her mounted photographs using wood poles and balancing elements to create a narrative around the images. The poles almost create invisible walls and carry your from one picture to the next in a really dynamic and narrative way.

Another show I was very excited to check out was Vera, Chapter 2.

Vera is an ongoing project directed by Kirsty Minns and my lovely friend Érika Muller. The project started last year with the first chapter when they asked various designers to create an original product based on found photographs of a fictional girl called Vera.

I took part of the first chapter last year by creating Vera’s scarf based on her love of Horses.

But unlike the first chapter in which each designer or artist was given the freedom to work on a photo of their choice, this second chapter was a different take on the narrative as all the designer had to create an object based on a single photograph chosen by the two curators.

The second chapter also involved writers that were asked to write a story based on those final objects, taking the fictional aspect of the project to another level of interpretation.

Here is a selection of my favorite weird and wonderful objects from this year’s chapter :

A beautiful set of boxes by Liliana Ovalle that are remindful of sugar icing

A gorgeous range of copper pieces in by Tomas Alonso that transport you to Brighton’s docks

A lovely set of vessels by Daniel&Emma

And finally, my favorite of all : a wonderfully weird hourglass by Bernadette and Tetsuo at Study O’Portable.

And to wrap up my busy week of openings, I treated myself to a Vera Afternoon tea at Cocomaya with some friends.

All I needed to make this September month nicer was a bit of sun but nothing is perfect ; )

Malika x