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A couple of weeks ago I visited Clerkenwell Design Week, the annual, independent design festival, and networking hub for architects, interior designers, and design professionals. The festival showcases established independent brands as well as emerging talent, across more than 150 showrooms, with specially curated launches and events. This year I particularly enjoyed a look round Claybrook’s newish London showroom and House of Hackney’s headquarters – an impressive Victorian chapel decorated with their unique blend of whimsical patterns and vibrant style.
I’m always interested in, and a champion of, companies that develop safe, earth friendly wall paints. Claybrook offers a choice of a 100 different colours, available in both Emulsion and Eggshell finishes – the paints are vegan friendly and produced in the UK. They also offer a fabulous selection of floor and wall tiles; from glass mosaics, hand-crafted terracotta tiles, terrazzo and marble effect, shown below.
House of Hackney has produced a mouth-watering collection of oversize florals, checks, and graphic motifs. Their brand new range of wallpapers and fabrics – called London Fields – perfectly captures a playful modern approach to the Art Deco era, Victorian pattern and Bauhaus brights.
Their new PVC-free wallpaper includes Loddiges, a textural floral design with a nod to Victorian hothouse flowers (also available as organic cotton.) The Dalston Daisy wallpaper features a 1930s-inspired pattern with a hand-drawn feel. And my favourite, the Artist’s Check, reminiscent of midcentury picnic blankets, is a painterly checked wallpaper in layered slubby reds, browns, and greens.
Also, recently launched, is the London Fields Check – a sumptuous cotton velvet – in sage, taupe, rust and blue. And, if you’re in London, do visit the new House of Hackney Apothecary Room. Sip botanical tea and sample the range of apothecary lotions, facial oil, soap and candles. I tried the Wonder Garden face oil, made from organic, natural ingredients and it smells divine. All products ship worldwide online.
Before moving onto books, exhibitions and vintage stock, I want to share these two fabrics from Beata Heaman. First, the ‘Hallon’ (Raspberry) Insjöns fabric – a celebration of traditional Swedish weaving. Made, above, into a tablecloth, the Insjöns is also available as a cushion or sold by the metre. Woven on century old shuttle looms in a small town in Sweden. The Willow Ink cotton linen is an upscaled take on vintage Willow pattern – also sold by the metre – and now available as an oilcloth. Perfect for outdoor dining or protecting tables.
When I visited Mexico City some years ago I had a very definite idea of what I wanted to see. At the top of my list was Frieda Kahlo’s house, now a museum and gallery open to the public. It was, as you can imagine, a stunning extension of the artist’s life; her bold use of colour and unique, imaginative style. Sadly, I can’t find a single photograph of the inside of the house, it was pre decent camera phones and I’ve misplaced the prints. But I have a vivid memory of her paintings and her studio - paints and brushes still arranged in jars, and a desk with a view of the lush, brightly painted garden.
A new exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon will open on 25 June at Tate Modern, London, and will feature over 30 of Kahlo’s most iconic artworks. I can’t wait to visit - it will be a chance to see her paintings again and reaffirm Kahlo’s iconic status as one of the 20th century’s most remarkable artists.
The exhibition introduces her ‘many selves’ – the dedicated wife, the intellectual, the modern artist, and the political activist. Alongside treasured garments, jewellery, photographs and memorabilia, there are over 200 works by her contemporaries and the artists she inspired from later generations, celebrating her lasting impact on those who continue to reimagine and reclaim her remarkable story.
Frida: The Making of an Icon, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG. 25 June 2026 – 3 January 2027.
And for anyone visiting Mexico City this year do put The Casa Azul on your list. I’ve put a link for tickets and information below the photograph.
La Casa Azul (the blue house), Londres 247, Del Carmen, Ciudad de México, 04100. Ciudad de México - CDMX.
I’ve just finished reading My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy in which we meet three three friends: Eva, Fanny, and an unnamed narrator who is working on an essay about Stein. The friends live in Paris, and we follow their stories as each searches for something different – Eva her missing husband, Fanny a lost cat, and the narrator looking to finish her essay on Stein while discovering more about poet’s life and work. She visits Stein’s former home on Rue de Fleurus in the 6th arrondissement, as well as her grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery. Along the way we learn about Stein’s life in Paris, her writing, her relationship with Alice B Toklas and the many artists who visited their art salon. I’ve loved every book I’ve read by Levy, and enjoyed this for its glimpses of Paris, the complicated relationship between the three friends, and the re-telling of Stein’s early twentieth century world. Have you read it? Let me know what you thought in the comments below.
I was intrigued by Good Girl, by Aria Aber – it was shortlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for fiction and had great reviews in bookshops and online. A few pages in I wasn’t entirely sure it was for me but after the initial half chapter I raced through it. The story is set in Berlin where we meet Nila – born in Germay to Afghan parents. Nila lives on a Brutalist housing estate in a rough part of town. She is clever and wins a scholarship to study but is also drawn to the techno warehouse clubs in Berlin where raving all night on ecstasy is the norm. There she meets American writer Marlowe, mysterious, older and controlling. This coming of age novel shows Nila facing questions about her identity, combined with the pain of difficult relationships with her Afghan family and community, with Berlin, and with Marlowe. What did I enjoy the most? Great characters and the immersive, poetic writing.
I’m currently reading The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley. I saw a review in the Guardian and bought the book the same day at my local bookshop. The Palm House, is a novel about friendship and how we navigate relationships. The main character and narrator Laura has a difficult and elusive mother back home, in the north of England. Laura works part-time on a magazine in London and regularly meets up with old friend, Putnam, for drinks in a pub by the Thames. Their conversations about work and the state of the world are interwoven with Laura’s unusual relationship with a ‘sitcom comic’ and with descriptions of growing up with her single-parent mum and widowed grandmother. I have less than half a chapter left, but I’ve really enjoyed the book so far, especially Laura’s run-ins with men at awful parties and her everyday routines.
This vintage French seascape reminds me of the work of Raoul Dufy, and his colourful paintings of seaside towns. ‘Sailboats in the Harbour’ is painted in oils on canvas mounted onto board, and has a lovely palette of emerald green, teal, lilac, reds and blue. Measures 36.5cm x 25.5cm and is framed in a hand-carved vintage frame. Signed Maupin. Available online here.
These striking abstract paintings are by Theo Mendez (1934-1997), a contemporary of Howard Hodgkin, Terry Frost, Gillian Ayres and Euan Uglow. Born in London, Mendez studied at Camberwell School of Art and became Head of the Textile Department there from 1976. Several of his works are in the Museum of London, and he exhibited worldwide, including at the V&A in 1956. These post-modernist paintings use collage and found emblems from his travels around Paris and demonstrates the artist’s love of jazz and café culture. Signed and dated June 1986 on the reverse. Each measures 28.3 x 21cm.
A new major exhibition: Hepworth in colour will open at the Courtauld Gallery, on 12 June and will explore Barbara Hepworth’s lifelong love of colour. Hepworth is best known for her modernist, abstract sculpture, inspired by nature and life in Cornwall where she lived and worked, in the seaside town of St Ives.
I first became aware of Hepworth’s work while growing up in Yorkshire, where many of her sculptures were commissioned for public buildings and on display at Chatsworth House, near Sheffield. Born and educated in Yorkshire, Hepworth later moved to Cornwall – her former St. Ives home and studio is open to the public Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Hepworth in Colour, Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN. 12 June - 6 September 2026.
You might like… My Visit to Cornwall & the Leach Pottery
A Visit to Cornwall
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October 21, 2025
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