Hong Kong and China designers tap into buzz about crafts at fast-growing London Craft Week
From Chi Wing Lo’s geometric tea wares to Elaine Ng’s batik and Chinese studios’ 3D-printed cups, Hong Kong and China were well represented at London event that feeds our growing appetite for authenticity
Is the ‘C’ word fashionable again? Judging by the success of this year’s London Craft Week, which saw Hong Kong and Chinese designers, among others, show off their handiwork, crafts are one of the hottest trends in the design industry.
And it’s not just big luxury brands getting a look-in on this revival of interest in things made by hand. Loraine Rutt, cartographic artist and founder of the Little Globe Company, welcomed a steady flow of visitors to the workshop she installed in the basement gallery of a rare-books shop in London’s Mayfair to demonstrate how she hand-scribes her topographically correct, miniature ceramic globes.
Across the city at Oxo Tower Wharf, in the Japanese design store Wagumi, a kimono-clad Hiroko Ogawa, who had flown in from Bizen, Japan, needed to reposition her temporary workshop to accommodate the crowd intrigued by her kintsugi demonstration showing the traditional art of restoring items with lacquer and gold.
“London had a Fashion Week and a Design Week, but nothing dedicated to craft despite the fact that many of Britain’s leading luxury industries rely heavily on craftsmen and -women,” says Guy Salter, who founded the not-for-profit event just three years ago.
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He has since seen it evolve into an ambitious programme of 240-plus studio tours, workshops, talks, demonstrations and exhibitions at venues ranging from hotels and department stores to tiny workshops and studios in the capital. This year’s programme of activities, held in May, attracted 93,716 attendees, a 63 per cent increase on the previous year.
