Keeping things fresh at Decorex 2023

It takes a lot to keep a design trade show fresh year-on-year. There’s the keeping-up with the perpetual churn of trends and tastes, while also offering new platforms and formats with which to highlight them. Managing the juxtaposition of established names and creative upstarts. Juggling the obligations of pragmatic business networking but also offering a little outré pizazz to cut loose with as the days roll on.

London’s Decorex is a keen example of how to do it right: nearly half a century in existence, still the only show of its kind in the UK and a bona fide lynchpin for the European interior design community. Founded in 1978 – with only one fallow year, due to COVID in 2020 – it remains a meticulously curated undertaking; a ur-text for the model that’s stuck firmly to the key tenets of quality, inspiration and connection. 

This year’s iteration – taking place from 8-11 October – will see over 250 brands bedding in at Olympia London, the show’s home since 2019. The sprawling line-up is a run-through of the great and good (and future iterations of those) of the interior design world, encompassing everything from furniture and lighting to paints, fabrics, decorative accessories and more – from businesses including Arte International, Curiousa, Ian Sanderson, Little Greene, Pooky Lighting and Vincent Sheppard. 

‘Keeping the high level of design is paramount to its success, as well as nurturing the younger brands and shouting about the craftsmanship involved in making such beautiful products,’ explains event director Sam Fisher, who’s worked with Decorex for around 15 years. The conception is comprehensively excellent, but she highlights contributions from Knots Rugs x NatMaks (‘To see NatMaks' marbling technique, called suminagashi, on rugs will be really exciting,’ she explains) and COAT Paints (with a limited edition, autumn-themed range) as being of particular personal interest.

Still, it’s the ancillary happenings that stand Decorex truly apart. The fair’s longstanding Design Talks programme will see over 85 speakers and industry pros discuss pressing topics and divulging pearls of wisdom: from a Roddy Clarke-led discussion on sustainability in design and advice on greening your practice, to a conversation between Henry Holland and House & Garden’s Davey Hunter Jones on the relationship between fashion and interiors (and much more). 

Making Spaces, too, encourages meaningful interaction between artisans and audience – a zone for makers to give hands-on demonstrations of how they create their wares, this year partnered with creative business hub Cockpit Arts, the Black Artisans cultural heritage exhibition and Future Icons – a showcase of design- and craft-led businesses – among others.

But perhaps the key elevating elements at Decorex are its annual designer collaborations. For 2023, the VIP lounge has been conceived as the burlesque-inspired ‘Lé Boudoir D’Corexxx’ by Irish studio Designed by Woulfe. It follows a wilfully camp narrative remit: a fictitious interior overhaul for a red-lipstick- and suspender-belt-wearing vamp named ‘Lady Linbury’. ‘The space,’ the Decorex site explains, ‘will encourage our VIPs to transcend their comfort zones and embrace the realm of sensuality with grace and finesse.’ That might sound subtly suggestive, but it’s more than emphasised by the more wantonly edgy promo video for in-house bar, The Red Spot.

This year’s other bar commission, meanwhile, has been awarded to Laurence Katz, founder and lead creative director of London’s vivid, colour-forward Elemental Studio. The aim, Decorex explains, was to create, ‘an inviting space… that fosters a deep appreciation for the beauty that surrounds us’. With a moodboard featuring dew-dappled autumn leaves, wildly Art Deco bar interiors and surreal, Klimt-style imagery, it’ll doubtless do just that. Those looking for something a little softer should descend on The Colour Café: a break-out and meeting area built and designed by sustainable paint brand YesColours. 

‘We ensure we pick the brands that have the right quality, pricepoint, heritage, craftsmanship and story that we know our visitors expect to see at Decorex,’ explains Fisher, in conclusion, of the pervading philosophy that has made the fair such a nexus for the interior design scene. ‘This year’s edition will be no different. [Our visitors] are always looking for something new at every show they attend.’ Decorex, as ever, should more than provide. 

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