I'm going to be visiting London and Cornwall next month. This is very well worn territory for me, so I'm really going to make a conscious effort to see something new in the capital. Anyone have any suggestions for things in London that are either brand-spankin' new or off the beaten path? Particularly stuff that's design-related. (Unfortunately, I'll be there too early for the Terrence Conran show at the Design Museum.) An account of my last (brief) visit is here.
High/low mix from those magpies of Maine, Wary Meyers. You can buy the fabric in their new shop!
Arts and Crafts isn't really my style, but I will miss the warm glow of the glass shade. And the two bulbs cast more light than their usurper (which only has one bulb) will. But I will not miss the way the whole thing wobbled and clanged every time you turned it on and off. 
I have returned from a great short trip to England. I visited my beloved Cornwall, where I tromped around cute towns, breathed sea air, ate fudge, climbed hills, rode boats and generally enjoyed myself, despite the rain. I also spent a little time in London, where the rain drove me into museums. One I like to visit is the Wallace Collection (New Yorkers can imagine a larger version of the Frick). It's a manageable scale, plus it's close to Marylebone High Street, a shopping strip I like (particularly here and here). I've also really enjoyed the cafe. 
The cafe is relatively new (last ten years?). The former courtyard was given a glass roof and a clean, modern cafe was installed. Perfect place for a cream tea on a rainy day. Well, on this visit, I had my moment of interior design horror, and I could think of no other place than this blog to adequately express it.
So I had to do some Googling to remember what the cafe used to look like, and the above two pictures were the best I could find. Now that I see it, I realize that pale wicker is not the most exciting thing in the world. Just take my word for it: the place felt simple, elegant and refined. 
Ok, now here's the after! What the hell is going on? Yes, those are giant, fake-old, scrolled iron chairs. With burgundy pillows with gold embroidery. Not pictured are the seafoam green cushions, also trimmed with gold, that lined the banquets. Ugly, ugly, ugly! I still had a nice cream tea in a pleasant space, but the decor really bummed me out. Am I crazy?
On a positive note, I also stopped in the totally awesome Victoria & Albert Museum, which seems to get better each time I visit. I checked out the just opened Medieval and Renaissance galleries, and then I had lunch at their cafe, which is housed in three historic rooms, and must be one of the most beautiful museum cafes in the world (my sandwich wasn't bad either). Love how they tweaked things a bit with those modern chandeliers, but otherwise the furniture does nothing to compete with the space, and certainly doesn't insult it.
I went to a sale night at the Conran Shop last week. I actually bought a lamp (!), but I'll say more on that when it's delivered. Conran's is my favorite design shop in New York. It's just very democratically laid out. It's easy to take a good look at everything and all the prices are clearly marked. And while the store has plenty of insanely expensive fantasy pieces, they are mixed among affordable ones. I always enjoy sizing up the floor models — seeing how they stand up to wear and tear and if they look as nice in person as they do in pictures.
I was wandering around the western reaches of Soho on Saturday, and I happened into a store called Wyeth. (Since coming home and finding this bitter Apartment Therapy thread, I now know that this is a well-known place among serious furniture collectors, but I definitely don't fit that profile!) I'm a strictly amateur furniture-ogler, so I was happy to be buzzed inside (safely obscured by other customers) and left alone to wander around and admire all the amazing pieces. It didn't take long to make the ominous discovery that nothing had a price tag on it.
And after I saw a bunch of original Finn Juhl chairs I knew the place was totally out of my league.
Still, the store is densely packed with amazing stuff, and it was fun to imagine that it was just a humble old antique store, and something could be purchased for less than $1,000 (about my maximum in theoretical spending). 
I visited one of my favorite design stores in NY — The Conran Shop — for their annual pre-Christmas sale tonight. While I usually score some gifts at this event, I struck out this year (I just don't have enough modern design aficionados among my friends and family). Still it's always nice to see some design icons up close and decide if they measure up. For example, the Signal light (left) is AWESOME in every size and color and looks like it will look great pretty much forever. On the other hand, the Tolomeo lamps (center) looked ugly to me. I'm not under their trendy spell! But nothing could compare with the Crazy Triple Floor Lamp (right), which I had already dismissed as kind of '80s-rec-room-y, before I saw that there was no way to turn on each light seperately!!! What on earth is the point? Terrence Conran, did you personally approve this?
I love the Neue Gallerie (although not as much as I love its restaurant, the Cafe Sabarsky). They have a holiday catalog this year that is chock full of gorgeous, obscenely expensive objects.
