For the Type A personalities out there, the final months of the year are a blissful time to wipe the slate clean and get organised for the year ahead – crisp, empty planners, meeting-free diaries, and a blank calendar ready to be filled with milestones, events and holidays in anticipation for the year ahead. As with previous years, British designer Margaret Howell is characteristically more organised than most. The brand has unveiled its 2025 calendar, this year in collaboration with late, great textile designer Lucienne Day. Day's exquisite mosaic artworks frame each month in a splendour of colour and geometry. The calendar is accompanied by an exhibition dedicated to Day’s lesser-known silk mosaics spanning from 1975 to 1993.
Margaret Howell presents 'Lucienne Day's Silk Mosaics 1975-1993'
Day with ‘Aspects of the Sun’ silk mosaic, 1990
The exhibition, which is at Margaret Howell's flagship on Wigmore Street in London, is the first comprehensive showcase of Day’s 'Silk Mosaics' since the pioneering post-war designer's death in 2010. Day, whose legacy transcends time and trends, embraced colour in her work, and was inspired by the Bauhaus and modern art movements, working across mediums spanning textiles, wallpapers, ceramics, table linens and carpets.
Lucienne Day’s work features on the Margaret Howell 2025 calendar
Day's works in silk have a special quality of their own. From large-scale pieces to daintier samples, the exhibition is a chance to view the kaleidoscope of works up close, whereby the detail of craft and colour can be fully appreciated.
Lucienne Day with ‘Midnight Sun’
The compositions are arresting – mesmerising in their intricacy and yet soothingly atmospheric. The exhibition contains around 20 of Day's textile pieces crafted over the course of two decades, from the late 1970s until the end of the 1990s. Some pieces nod to her emerging work of the 1950s, playing with geometry, featuring blocks of colour and a more linear structure. Others reference a more pared-back, architectural style, reminiscent of Day's later work in the 1960s.
‘The Castle and Other Stories’ at Day's home, which she shared with husband and fellow designer Robin Day
As such, 'Silk Mosaics' presents a compelling lens through which to view the gentle evolution of Day's design language. Against the backdrop of Frieze London 2024, with all its noise and bombast, this is a welcome retreat, and Margaret Howell, the flagbearer for British modernist values in clothing as in life, is the perfect host.
A selection of the Silk Mosaics will form the content of the Margaret Howell Calendar 2025. 'Lucienne Day's Silk Mosaics 1975-1993' runs from 11 October until 3 November at Margaret Howell, 34 Wigmore Street, London W1 margarethowell.co.uk
‘Midnight Sun’ by Lucienne Day on the Margaret Howell calendar
-
First look – Bottega Veneta and Flos release a special edition of the Model 600Gino Sarfatti’s fan favourite from 1966 is born again with Bottega Veneta’s signature treatments gracing its leather base
-
We stepped inside the Stedelijk Museum's newest addition in AmsterdamAmsterdam's Stedelijk Museum has unveiled its latest addition, the brand-new Don Quixote Sculpture Hall by Paul Cournet of Rotterdam creative agency Cloud
-
On a sloped Los Angeles site, a cascade of green 'boxes' offers inside outside livingUnStack, a house by FreelandBuck, is a cascading series of bright green volumes, with mountain views
-
One to Watch: Family Project’s ‘furniture friends’ are elegant and humorous with lasting emotional valueFamily Project, founded by Francesco Paini, is a London-based design practice drawn to human connection, creating portraiture through furniture and injecting artful expressions into interior spaces
-
Martino Gamper creates a joyful tapestry of colour, pattern and eras in an immersive showcase'I'm always interested in what is considered kitsch, what is considered contemporary, what is ugly, what is beautiful—it's a subtle line'. Martino Gamper‘ presents 'Before; After & Beyond’
-
Pierre Jeanneret’s Chandigarh furniture meets South Asian diasporic art in an unusual London exhibitionRajan Bijlani opens a show combining Pierre Jeanneret furniture for the Indian city of Chandigarh with works for sale by six artists of South Asian origin – in his own London townhouse
-
Mud celebrates turning 30 with a new Islington storeTo celebrate its 30th anniversary Mud opens a new Islington store, showcasing its Australian ceramics where beautiful design meets utility
-
PAD London’s 16th edition is a blisteringly optimistic case for human achievementAt PAD London, collectible design is more than rarefied furniture; it is a compelling case for the uplifting power of craftsmanship at the dawn of the AI revolution
-
The Home of Sustainable Things is a trove of circular design for domestic lifeThe Home of Sustainable Things (HOST), is a homeware shop in London, focused on circular design to encourage mindful living and more conscious consumption
-
‘At its best, it's all an act of love’: Apparatus’ Gabriel Hendifar on building a cult design brandFor our interview series with those lighting up London Design Festival 2024, Apparatus’ co-founder Gabriel Hendifar reflects on the New York brand's future, and its first year in London
-
‘If there wasn't a demand for design that fits the psyche of the day, we'd still be sitting on Victorian furniture,’ Sheridan Coakley, SCP founderAs part of our London Design Festival 2024 interview series, Sheridan Coakley speaks about four decades of the fair
