Snap up these treasures quickly though before the corgis get their paws on ’em….

Let the partying commence!

You may recognise Keith Brymer Jones’ products from the cosy shapes in the Word range. Word is a collection of whiteware ceramics in comfortable satisfying shapes hand-stamped with a coloured word in the classic typewriter font – bestsellers include the Bucket Mug in ‘Love’, ‘Tea’ (obligatory at Rumour Towers!) and ahem ‘Sex + Chocolate’.

Keith’s Punk range has also caused a stir with its safety pinned mugs bearing witty slogans like ‘Sex, Mugs and Rock and Roll’, ‘TeaNage Kicks’ and ‘God Save the Tea’. We will be working on building Keith’s profile and as he’s an ex punk with a cheeky sense of humour we think it is going to be a lot of fun!

KBJ products are on sale in department stores and gift shops across the UK and the world, also on Keith’s new website www.keithbrymerjones.com. We will be working on this ever-expanding range with some exciting additions this year including a Home Fragrance collection.

Keep your eyes peeled for new product ranges on the horizon from Keith. And if you can think of an excuse to invite us to the seaside…we’ll be there with our buckets and spades ready!

Here are our top picks for the season and if you have time to pop into Hope and Greenwood, they have the best Easter chocs around.

Happy Easter everyone!

We’re so excited to be working with such a luxurious British brand and have been huge fans for years now. Here is a bit about Squint limited and the beautiful furniture and accessories they create:

Squint is a unique, independent design company which produces and retails premium quality, bespoke, hand- crafted exuberant furniture and home accessories. All products are proudly British designed and made by Squint with all materials British made by trusted suppliers.
The collection consists of furniture, accessories and lighting, with additional categories including fabrics and wallpapers to be launched this spring. Products are handmade to the highest standards of craftsmanship, each piece being made to order using top-quality materials by a skilled and dedicated workforce.

Squint was the creation of Lisa Whatmough, who through her passion for textiles and with a very British design sensibility has created a world of richly decorative homewares which are a fusion of fashion and the decorative Arts, each UK made item becoming a piece of contemporary art work.
Lisa imbues Squint with her own style and has created a clear visual signature mixing ages and social and artistic heritages to create her own conceptual vision of how we live today and sells internationally in some of the world’s top design and fashion stores.

The Squint range is new and in most instances made to order with a new fusion range also now available ready-made. Squint products can be made in the same colourways as shown on the website and in-store although the hand stitched nature of the patchwork process means that no two are ever identical and orders can be placed referencing a specific colour combination from another product.

The Fabrics and Design Principles

Fabrics are sourced from a variety of British iconic heritage and design companies, primarily Gainsborough Silk, Designers Guild and Osborne and Little. The fabrics are chosen for their quality and rich depth of colour, and those companies between them provide a variety of textures from fine silks to woven linens, Squint mixes in velvet, tickings and antique and vintage textiles to provide a unique palette.
Design principles relate to quality, exuberant individuality, a sense of Britishness and hand crafting which offers a clear value whatever the final price and choice for the client.

The Furniture Suppliers
Squint works with a number of long-established suppliers who have proven track records and are the best in their fields to be found in the UK and has built a close relationship with these companies and their managements, all independently family owned businesses who share the same pride in delivering the best the market can offer.

Then there are the fab cards from Hello!Lucky and a sweet swans one from Nixey & Godfrey. We’ve all chosen our favourite to give to our beloveds. Which one would you choose?

Our (very good) excuse for the visit was to check out the stands and latest launches from two of our lot Natural History and Voyage Decoration. But we also took a few turns around the inspiring Maison halls, took some snaps, found out about lots of lovely new brands and put together an overview of our Maison trends…

Starting with a trend that we already know and love that we were happy to see continuing throughout the show – industrial chic. Madam Stoltz’s industrial, wire and wood products were a great example of this…

More wire from Borgo Delle Tovaglie and another trend that spread its wings across the show – birds! Although this trend seemed to mainly be garden birds I’m sure this fella is a bird in someone’s garden somewhere…

Our friends at Voyage Decoration launched the second Voyage Country fabric range that was packed full of prints of birds and other country critters.

Along with a Scottish themed fabric collection of colourful tartans and thistles aplenty, oh and new cushions and furniture ranges too – they’ve been keeping busy!

But the birds don’t stop there…in fact they got even more exotic with Natural History’s Flamingo prints stalking through the stand out trend along with their products using antique illustrations of a parade of monkeys too.

Another trend we were pleased to see sticking around (but now with an added punch)…was the 50s style but this time with more colour, more brightness and even more fun 50s shapes.

We call it Mid-Century Pop and like very much indeed. The pics seen here are of the Sentou stand who know how to do this style with super colours perfectly.

And also seen in our totally on trend hotel Palm Opera where we spotted furniture from another fave from the show Red Edition.

Oh and Sentou have it spot on with one more trend – paper lights - a great, eco idea with a soft look that we saw throughout the show too…

These paper lamps stacked on cool vintage books (another mini trend!) were lookig fab at the Borgo Della Tovaglie stand too.

Paper featured heavily in other products too - these paper storage boxes from the Paper Storage Company were some of top paper picks…

But the colours kept coming…grey and yellow were still standing out to us all through the show. Wonderful British brand MissPrint showed us how its done with their new fabric and wallpaper ranges. 

Here’s a moment in picture of about halfway through day one of our Parisian adventure when Mel finally navigated us out of Hall 5A (honestly it was like a black-hole – we just couldn’t leave!)

And here’s why we got lost…the fantastic antique circus themed Andrew Martin stand. Fabulous, oversized, distracting vintage style homeware. Not to be looked at when you should be scrutinising a map!

We were also happily distracting looking at and longing for Donna Wilson’s tactile Bora Da range on the SCP stand.

Dupenny’s sweetly saucy showgirl prints on wallpaper and new cushions were show stoppers in the British European Design Group‘s eclectic stand of young British brands.

Here I am having a break and indulging in something French and chocolatey…

Following two of our favourite threads throughout the show (garden birds and canary yellow) and charming us just a little…we fell for these 70s retro stylish display lamps from Le Jacquard Francais.

This colourway of the show also led through to these great colour combinations seen on Niki Jones’ hand-crafted lovelies. This skilled homespun feel was reflected in a few further (particularly British) brands like Charlene Mullen and Wallace Sewell.

We also loved the classic British craft story behind Flux. A Stoke on Trent based brand that are rejuvenating the traditional ceramics factories Stoke is famous for with new designs from the latest crop of students. Keep to the classic blue, white and gold though, of course.

Although our treks around the vast halls of Maison may have meant the end for some of our shoes…

We loved the show and everyone loves an excuse to buy new shoes in Paris - although the pom-pom boots may not have been the imagined purchase! 

It inspired us, taught us about some upcoming trends but perhaps more importantly that some of the trends that we know and love won’t be going far. Can’t get better than that.

Except that (cheesy photo alert) we also got to see the Eiffel Tower, eat fabulous French food and even try out a bit of our high school French (mais oui, c’est vrai!)

A bientôt, Amy and Mel x

Wallpapers, aprons…

Tea towels…

Kids T’s, Bags…

And more. Go, buy, enjoy!

Amy x

Here’s a lowdown of our highlights, including a few of our lot who exhibited – Anorak, Natural History and Thornback & Peel.

Anorak introduced new lovely ranges of towels and bedding (bagsy a Kissing Robins duvet cover)…

And introduced some nifty new prints on their ramblers style stand…

We loved the colours and knits on the SCP stand…

Natural History got exotic with the monkey and flamingo prints in their new range…

And a tile range with some fabulous unusual designs…

We loved the graphic style (and plenty of colour!) over at the Room39 stand…

People Will Always Need Plates had a fab stand busy offering design commissions…

Thornback & Peel’s hot of the press hand-prints were getting regal…

And seeing their most covetable deckchairs made us remember spring is on the way (well we’re optimists aren’t we?!)…

We discovered Lindsey Lang, whose beautiful bright retro prints kept with the colourful spring palette…

While our final stop at Jonathan Adler’s stand reminded us that we never get bored of pattern.

Amy and Mel x

Amy – wants to learn to use her sewing machine and for it not to be just an ornament in her living room.

Sophie – wants to not spend more than £25 per month on clothes. Look out charity shops, here Soph comes!

Mel – wants to master making Crème brûlée using her new butane torch she bought for her husband (yes, it was one of those gifts…this is for you but really for me, let’s share!) as well as do more exercise so she doesn’t become the size of a house.

Susan -wants to read more books and get to grips with her SLR camera (and not just use the automatic mode all the time)

Ruth – is not in the office but hers would probably be something like successfully wean baby Ellen and get her sleeping through the night.

Our clients have a few great products to help with new year resolutions from learning a new skill like knitting or icing a cake to remembering to pack your lunch to keeping a daily journal.

And of course, we love the mottos in the Work together poster from Nixey and Godfrey which we all aspire to.

Have a happy and healthy 2012 from all of us at Rumour.