London Design Festival incorporates a range of showcases at the OXO Tower

The Oxo Tower is the quintessence of clever design.

Emblazoned with an enormous OXO on its windows, it was once used to circumvent a ban on advertising on the South Bank, in order to promote a certain brand of stock cubes.

It makes the Oxo Tower Wharf a fitting place to hold the London Design Festival.

New this year, the final four days of the festival will incorporate Material Matters –a range of showcases, talks and a marketplace.

Innovators and experimentalists working at the cutting edge of materials will look to discuss ecological issues such as how the design industry can become a sustainable, circular economy.

Bespoke shoemakers Carréducker are running a selection of leathercraft and shoe design classes.

They’ll be teaching the public to make belts, secateurs cases and small leather accessories.

Elsewhere, design company Ruup & Form are running a site-specific installation, which is the work of 11 artists working with textiles.

The World Reimagined deals with the abhorrence of slavery, it takes the form of a series of large global sculptures across seven UK cities.

The festival piece, entitled Fury and Fire, is positioned in the Courtyard in front of gallery@oxo and Bargehouse.

It’s a collaboration by Saint Lucian artists Fiona Compton and Hailey Gonzales.

Reimagined wants to galvanise communities to better understand what it means to be black and British.

A gallery enterprise called Fit for a Queen will take place at the JeDeCo studio.

Inspired by the Platinum Jubilee, it features design pieces allowing the wearer to express their inner blue blood and feel like royalty when wearing them.

It is now an especially pertinent part of the festival, following the Queen’s death.

The 20th edition of The London Design Festival ends on September 25.

 

Picture: Material Matters at the London Design Festival Picture: Yeshen Venema