What's on in London: the best design fairs, exhibitions and markets on this month
1. Desire Jewellery & Silversmithing Fair
March 8-10, Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road, SW3
Entry is £6 on the door (01622 747325; desirefair.com).
Buy or commission a special ring or anniversary gift from over 100 fine contemporary UK designer makers. Jewellery is the main event, in gold, silver, platinum, copper, cellulose acetate and glass, maybe with pearls, or enamel. There’s also tableware and vessels. The lovely pictured London skyline, above, in hand-pierced silver is by Jen Ricketts (jenricketts.co.uk).
2. Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain
Until March 30, The Aram Gallery, 110 Drury Lane, Covent Garden WC2 (thearamgallery.org; bauhaus100.com)
This show celebrates 100 years since the founding of the Bauhaus radical school of design, set up in Germany in 1919 but closed by the Nazis in 1933. Eminent Bauhaus professors Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy fled to London to live in a cutting-edge apartment block — Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, pictured above, later called the Isokon Building. Commissioned by visionaries Jack and Molly Pritchard, and designed by architect Wells Coates, it was a dynamic cultural hub of minimalist urban living for artists, writers, thinkers and even spies. Agatha Christie lived there and sculptors Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were regulars in the Isobar.
Exploring Pritchard’s own Isokon brand of plywood furniture, this show launches a new book, Isokon and the Bauhaus in Britain (Batsford, £25), with ripping but scholarly yarns of the émigrés, their celebrity pals, their designs, and the Pritchard family. Its authors are journalist Leyla Daybelge and design historian/curator Magnus Englund, co-founder of Skandium, who until recently lived in the Isokon penthouse.
Hosting the show in his design store is the founder and chairman of Aram Designs, Zeev Aram, who first revived modernist furniture in a small boutique in King’s Road, Chelsea, in the Sixties.
3. Eric Parry: Drawing
Open now until May 27
Sir John Soane’s Museum, 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2 (020 7405 2107; soane.org; ericparryarchitects.co.uk).
This one-man show stars architect Eric Parry, 66, whose most recent work includes 4 Pancras Square at King’s Cross and Fen Court, the new office block in the City of London. On view is an extraordinary spread of his drawings over 40 years, including the one above for refurbishment and new art gallery space at The Holburne Museum in Bath.
4. The Lots Road Design Market
March 11-13, 77 Lots Road, SW10 (020 7078 7996; justinvanbreda.com)
Interior designer Justin Van Breda has gathered talented but lesser-known makers to sell furniture, glass, accessories, tableware and fabric, from £15 to £500.
See Emma Britton’s original and very decorative glass splashbacks, Isabel Kimbell’s fabrics — her Kingfisher cushion is pictured above — classic and contemporary furniture by Henry Forwood, and much more.
5. Ceramic Art London 2019
March 22-24, Central Saint Martins, Granary Square, King’s Cross N1C
Day ticket £15; concessions £13; 16-25 years £10; under-16s free; three-day pass £35. (ceramicartlondon.com; 020 3137 0750).
You can buy direct from 90 of the world’s best potters, from £27 for a Yuta Segawa miniature vase. Our pictured piece above is by Roger Coll. The Clay Talks presents V&A director Tristram Hunt and ceramic artist Kate Malone. A temporary Kiln House is in nearby Skip Garden.
6. Connaught Village Woof Woof campaign
March 30, Connaught Village Studio, 3 Porchester Place, W2
Entry is free (connaught-village.co.uk)
Close to Hyde Park, Connaught Village is one of London's most dog friendly villages and many local cafes and shops welcome man's best friend in.
This free event, sponsored by local cafe Saint Aymes, is tailored to dog owners and their pets and features complimentary hair styling for owners and dog grooming for their pooches.
Plus Hyde Park Vets are on hand to showcase premium clothes and accessories so you can pick up a treat to take home for your dog.