Object of the day: New Eley Kishimoto wallpapers

Weeeeeell, if I can't write about eye-popping budget-stretching wallpaper during the London Design Festival, when else? (The event started this weekend and goes on until next Sunday.)

I'm a big fan of Eley Kishimoto clothes, and the print mad design duo's expanding homewares range excites me greatly. And it's not for the faint-hearted...

This is my favourite of the wallpaper designs that the brand – aka Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto – is launching at Decorex, which kicks off as LDF ends on Sunday.

Would you put it in your house?

It would really lift a room, for sure. I'm seeing it as the backdrop to a wall of white shelves, holding a disciplined display.

It also would look fantastic as the best feature wall/corner you'd ever seen, in an otherwise black-painted room, too (feature walls are back apparently, but I always favour a wall and a turn to mix things up a little).

The wallpaper range builds on these, which I wrote about when they exhibited them a few years back in an exhibition of them at the capital's Aram Store. Here's one of the other new designs.

Left: Mark Eley and Wakako Kishimoto

A very Eley Kishimoto take on a classic design. Again, with a crisp white theme around it, this would energise a room no end. I'd love to see it in a wide entrance hallway, with white-painted floorboards. The papers are going to be priced at £160 per roll.

But if you can't afford them, or don't have an interior that could accommodate such boldness, you can enjoy them – along with designs by many other interesting names – in an exhibition that runs until the end of October.

Above: Tracy Kendall and Louise Body, two of the designers whose work will appear at the London Print Studio exhibition

Designers on show at Artists' Interior Worlds include Lizzie Allen, whose Festival of Britain print you may remember from a few years back, when she was commissioned to create it in celebration of the Royal Festival Hall's 60th birthday (and you can still buy prints taken from it at the Southbank shop). There will also be work by Timorous Beasties, whose deviant urban Toile designs must surely be Britain's most popular gastropub loo wall covering. Also on show is Deborah Bowness, she of the fake wall of library books and CUSTHOM, digital embroidery meisters who I featured here. The Chapman brothers have created a design called ‘Insult to Injury’, which apparently "reworks Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’ etchings to outrageous effect". Of course. All these, among a vast rollcall of more interesting names.

The exhibition, which aims to pit classical artists against contemporary designers, sounds totally brilliant. It runs until 1 November at Londonprintstudio.org.uk.

Eley Kishimoto exhibition at Aram – and rugs

I've long loved the quirky graphic prints created by the Brit-Japanese fashion design duo, Eley Kishimoto. 

I like designs that stray from the classic ideas of what is classically stylish, or flattering – and while the the bold, brave distinctive Kishimoto look isn't always something I'm bold or brave enough to pull off, I like looking at it (and seeing bolder, braver types wearing it well).

So I was pleased to hear about an exhibition of the pair's work during – and beyond – London Design Festival; Living with Patterns takes place at the Aram Gallery, alongside the launch of a new range of Eley Kishimoto-designed rugs, exclusive to Aram Store, using archive prints. I can't afford the rugs (they start at £850). So I'm just enjoying them as part of the exhibition...

"Chains"

"Chains" in cream and brick red 

"Damask" in blue and cream

"Flash" in cream and black 

"Jigsaw"

"Ropey" in blue, cream and black 

"Ropey" in mustard, cream and black

The exhibition – which also includes other Aram-favourite designers and artists – celebrates 40 years of Aram, as well as the working relationship between Zeev Aram and Wakamo Kishimoto, which began when he put on her graduation show in the early 90s. Eley Kishimoto designs will also be on display on seven Moorcroft vases in the exhibition, as well as some lace drapes they have designed for MYB textiles.

The rugs are exclusive to Aram, and in store this month priced £850 each (Chains, Flash, Jigsaw and Ropey, which are hand tufted and measure 170 x 240 cm) or £950 (Damask, which comes in hand made Dhurry and measures 200 x 300 cm).

Find out more about the Aram-Kishimoto collaboration, and the names behind the label – husband-and-wife design team Wakako Kishimoto and Mark Eley – at the Aram website. 

Exhibition details 

The gallery is open Monday-Saturday 10am–6pm (Thursday until 7pm). Find it at Aram Store, 110 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5SG