Ahead of Design Week 2022 we were working to redesign Julian Chichester’s new showroom window at Design Centre in Chelsea Harbour. This year we drew inspiration from Piet Mondrian.
Famous for his geometric style, we love Mondrian’s use of colour-blocking and used this as the foundation for our ideas.
We are known for our strong use of colour and we really wanted to express this with the window display. We put our ‘Mondrian’ thinking-caps on and we decided to paint colourful MDF boards in bright contrasting colours which we pinned to the back of the shelves.
Using blocks of solid colour helps to strengthen and ground a space, so we covered the Parrot Sofa in a combination of four Nobils wools: a sunny yellow on the seat back, a teal blue on the seat, a grass green around the bottom and a tomato red for the piping. By upholstering this sofa in a combination of fabrics we have created a totally unique design.
To begin, we surveyed the window area and drew it on AutoCAD. This allowed us to work out which pieces of furniture would fit into the space. Flicking through Julian Chichester’s new catalogue, we were immediately struck by the Mondrian Bookshelf and the glorious Parrot Sofa.
We drew these colours out from our Lily Pad rug which is part of the new Kit Kemp for Annie Selke collection and available from Andrew Martin and Shop Kit Kemp.
In the initial planning stages we wanted to play with three levels, a low, medium and high. The smaller table lamp sits on a black jagged side table and the standing lamp has been placed slightly behind to the right. Introducing a mixture of heights adds fluidity to a space and guides the viewer.
To accessorise the showroom window we hand painted lamps in block colours drawing out the tones from Kit Kemp’s Pop Art Borders which are on the lampshades.
We covered the side and back walls in our Starry Sky wallpaper, making the space feel like a jewel box.
We are also very proud of our Design Studio’s Minnie Kemp, who delivered an inspiring talk about the colour wheel and the design process of this Julian Chichester window display. Read more about Design Week 2022 in our ‘Out and About’ post here.
