Put your faith in fabric

Barbara Chandler5 April 2012
The Weekender

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London may be an ant heap of outlets for fabrics, wallcoverings, furniture, floorings, lighting, antiques and ethnic treasures but, sometimes, the very vastness of the city creates a problem: it is difficult to focus. You spend hours trekking to and fro, increasingly frustrated by overcrowded Tubes and extortionate parking charges.

The House and Garden Fair deals with this by putting London's top interior decorating suppliers under one roof.

The centrepiece of the fair is four impressive roomsets by international designers. See the very latest ideas for domestic aesthetics, comfort-and technology, then wander round an eight-room showhouse designed by the British Interior Design Association, and see the intriguing Decades of Design exhibit put together by KLC School of Design (stand G66).

Garner outdoor ideas from the Garden Parties display and get cooking tips from Mark Wilkinson's Celebrity Kitchen. For help with choosing materials and colour schemes, register for a personal 20 minutes with a design expert for just £5 (take a photo and room plan measurements).

The fair abounds with fabrics but also take time out to update yourself on the sharpest contemporary looks for the home in furniture and accessories. Nick Morris - whose east London showroom presents modern design of all kinds - and German kitchen perfectionists Alno. Look out for Blue Beacon Lighting's techno fibre optics or CVO Firevault's modern fireplaces.

For sophisticated decorating materials, visit the Paint and Paper Library; or maybe you could commission a rug from Ark, or get Graham Sawyer to hide your radiators with his classy covers.

But my favourite is Bellamont Botanical's instant topiary: box trees lovingly reared and trimmed into classical shapes. They are so enchantingly English and eccentric.

The Daily Telegraph House and Garden Fair
Olympia, now until Sunday June 30, 10am-6pm (Fri and Sat), 10am-5pm (Sun), £13
0870 121 2525.

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