By Bed Threads Interiors 21.09.2025

7 Trends We Spotted at This Year's London Design Festival

From bold architecture to imaginative interiors, these are the standout moments that shaped this year’s biggest design event.

Just as Londoners wave goodbye to the summer sun and daydream about moving to a Greek island, the London Design Festival reminds us why we stay in this vibrant, design-forward – if admittedly grey-skied – cultural hub.

Public installations, district-wide exhibitions, and collaborations between global brands and emerging talent are the hallmarks of the annual event. Running from September 13 to 21, this year’s festival was as inspiring and innovative as ever. Celebrating creativity across interiors, furniture, architecture, and craft, it once again proved why it sets the tone for where design is heading.

Over showrooms, galleries, and pop-ups, designers explored sustainability, heritage, tactility, and wellbeing in ways that feel both imaginative and immediately relevant to how we live now. Here are the seven biggest ideas we spotted – and how they could inspire your own home.

1. Reuse as luxury

'The Car Boot Sale', by design gallery Slancha in partnership with fabrication company Formd, reimagined the classic British car boot sale as a design showcase. Inside a Brick Lane warehouse, the centrepiece was a vintage red Fiat surrounded by work from 17 UK designers, all made using salvaged and reclaimed materials – from timber offcuts and aluminium scraps to clay fragments.

Then there was ‘Material Matters’ back for its fourth year, this time set inside Holborn’s modernist Space House. It spotlighted everything from mycelium “leather” and algae-based textiles to recycled furniture and stone offcuts reimagined as surfaces.

Immersive showcase, ‘Waste Not: From Fallout to Future’ was created entirely from post-consumer waste, reframing rubbish not as an end point but as raw material with radical potential. The exhibition reminded visitors that circularity and regeneration aren’t abstract concepts but tangible design possibilities.

How to style it at home

These displays, among other exhibitions which integrated upcycling and reimagined materials, pointed to one clear direction: salvaged and sustainable materials are a crucial element of the future of design. Offcuts and bio-based innovations can look as refined and covetable as anything new. To tap into this trend at home, always consider longevity. Hunt for second-hand or vintage furniture and reupholster with new fabric instead of buying brand-new pieces. Choose kitchen benchtops, tiles, or tables made from recycled stone, terrazzo, or timber offcuts and when buying new, prioritise brands that offer circularity – products designed to be repaired, recycled, or returned at the end of their life.

2. Tactile, layered surfaces

A standout example of this was ‘Moroso x Designers Guild’, where iconic furniture was reimagined in richly patterned textiles. The collaboration showed how fabric alone can transform familiar forms, offering an easy way to bring depth, texture, and character into the home through reupholstery or bold soft furnishings.

Over at Baxter’s new Brompton Road gallery, furniture was presented in a rich mix of colours and finishes, underscoring the shift toward tactile, layered surfaces. Plush leathers, textured fabrics, and polished materials sat side by side, creating spaces that felt both luxurious and lived-in.

How to style it at home

The festival showed that interiors are moving away from stark minimalism and into layered, touchable luxury. It’s not just about what you see, but what you feel – mixing fabrics, finishes, and surfaces to create warmth and depth. To carry this into your home, play with contrast (for example, pair smooth leather with boucle cushions, or glossy finishes with matte stone), layer textiles, mix tones and think sensory – like soft upholstery or textured ceramics – to make your space feel more lived-in and engaging.

3. Colour as storytelling

Colour emerged as a powerful narrative device at this year’s festival, used to express identity, memory, and emotion. At 2LG Studio’s ‘Green Carnation’, an all-green salon paid tribute to Oscar Wilde, weaving individuality and inclusivity into its palette.

Faye Toogood’s collaboration with Noritake reimagined porcelain in painterly pinks and greens, turning tableware into a canvas for storytelling and ritual. And Lee Broom’s ‘Beacon’ at the Southbank Centre used shifting coloured light through upcycled glass to pulse in rhythm with Big Ben, a reminder of how colour and illumination can connect place, history, and collective experience.

How to style it at home

Colour goes beyond aesthetics – it’s a way to tell stories or spark emotion. The right palette can hold memory, mood, and meaning. At home, choose a colour that connects to your story – maybe a green that reminds you of nature or a bold pink that speaks to joy.

Use colour intentionally by applying it in one immersive gesture (painting a whole room) or through accents like textiles, ceramics, and artwork. Experiment with light by thinking outside of the box with elements like tinted glass, coloured lampshades, or mood lighting to let colour shift with the time of day.

4. Heritage, softened

Design this year also leaned into comfort and continuity, softening the edges of heritage with nostalgia and detail. In ‘A Softer World’ at Brompton Design District, curator Alex Tieghi-Walker gathered designers working with reclaimed materials and poetic forms to create spaces that feel grounded in memory yet gentle in sensibility.

Another standout was ‘Soft Worlds, Sharp Edges’ by Charlotte Taylor at The Lavery: here, vintage architecture and domestic motifs met avant-garde furniture and gauzy textiles, creating contrast between hard structure and soft surfaces, and reframing heritage style in a more nuanced, emotional form.

How to style it at home

Many shows at the LDF showed how traditional forms, vintage references, and architectural motifs can be reframed through softer lines and layered domestic details. In your own space, pair old with new, soften structure (think: rounded furniture and draped textiles), incorporate inherited or second-hand objects, and play with lightness – pale woods, muted tones, or translucent fabrics – to give heritage style a more breathable, inviting quality.

5. Modularity in everyday objects

Modularity is emerging as a key thread in design this year – the idea that pieces don’t have to be static but can change, grow, or adapt. Abid Javed’s lamps with interchangeable shades let the owner customise shape and mood, while Tom Dixon’s stackable lighting modules make lighting more flexible and playful than ever.

Complementing these, the ‘Array’ Sofa by Snøhetta for MDF Italia exhibited at Aram was a notable favourite: a modular seating system designed for circularity, comfort, and adaptability. The sofa pieces can be rearranged, reconfigured, and expanded, giving users flexibility to adjust based on space, need, or mood.

How to style it at home

Modularity is about investing in pieces that evolve with you rather than staying fixed. It’s a design language that prizes flexibility and longevity – perfect for modern living where rooms often need to multitask. Start with core pieces like modular sofas, shelving, or lighting that can be expanded or reconfigured as your needs change.

Mix-and-match by looking for products with interchangeable parts – lamp shades, cushions, or shelving units – that let you refresh the look without buying new. Prioritise adaptability by choosing items that work in different layouts, from compact city flats to larger open spaces and layer personality by using colour, textiles, or accessories to customise your modular pieces and make them feel unique.

6. Wellbeing-first design

Designs at LDF 2025 increasingly centred around human comfort, rest, and wellness – not just style. ‘Wake’ by Thomas Heatherwick for Tala acts as a sleep aid-lamp and gentle alarm, reminding us that light can shape our rest and routines.

&Tradition’s ‘Living Archive’ frames design through daily rituals and comfort, giving voice to objects that age gracefully and spaces made for slow living.

Another telling example was Cozmo × Pearson Lloyd’s Hug Sofa, featured in the ‘Comfort Lab’ at the Wax Building. With its high back, plush materials, and sculpted form – an embrace, a refuge in a busy city.

How to style it at home

Wellbeing-first design is about creating interiors that actively support rest, balance, and a sense of refuge. It asks us to think of design as something that shapes how we feel day to day. Invest in mood-enhancing light – lamps that dim, shift tone, or mimic natural cycles to help you wind down at night and wake gently in the morning.

Prioritise cocooning comfort by opting for seating with generous depth, soft curves, or enveloping backs that invite you to sink in and exhale. Layer sensory details like natural textures, grounding scents, and tactile fabrics all add to a restorative environment. Finally, design for rituals. Create intentional spaces, for example, a bedside nook for reading, a sofa corner for quiet mornings – that encourage slow, mindful moments.

7. Design in the home, literally

Some of the festival’s most intimate showcases placed design directly within the domestic setting, blurring the line between exhibition and everyday life. ‘The Objects We Live By’ by British ceramicist Emma Louise Payne transformed a Hyde Park townhouse into a lived-in gallery, with ceramics, glassware, and furniture woven naturally into kitchens and bedrooms to show how design lives with us, not apart from us.

How to style it at home

This theme is all about making design feel lived-in and personal, rather than staged or untouchable. Instead of treating objects as standalone pieces, the focus is on how they interact with everyday rituals and spaces. Curate through use by displaying ceramics, glassware, or textiles in the rooms they’re meant for – bowls in the kitchen, vases on the dining table, throws on the sofa – so beauty and utility blend.

Mix the ordinary with the crafted – handmade or artisanal objects paired with functional staples keep your home grounded while adding character. You can think beyond interiors by extending the design outdoors with small interventions like planters, birdhouses, or garden furniture that make exterior spaces feel part of daily life.