Sustainable Design at Design Made Trade 2012 wrapped up

What a bevy of talent we have in Australia. Last Friday I popped into the Design Made Trade event in Melbourne, and was struck by the wide range of beautiful sustainable designs that were interspersed amongst a very attractive collection of savvy design products. Today I share with you a little look at who caught my eye, and we hope to share more with you over the coming months ……

Brand new on the design block is Surface by Belinda Christie who is creating a sustainable homeware range which includes organic cotton cushions with PET infill, in addition to a 100% silk scarf range.  Our friends at Dharma Door continued to inspire ~ supporting fair trade artisans in Bangladesh, we were smitten by quite a few of their new bamboo and hand woven products which will appear instore over the next few months (stay tuned)!

I have a “thing” for refurbished furniture, and although the lighting in the images above isn’t the best, these chairs sure did hit the mark! Mixing fabric offcuts and remnants with a swatch of screen printed wallpaper, these chairs have gained a new life.

Panda Bean is a range we need to explore further ~ using natural plant dyes and imprints of nature, they are creating a very unique textile range suitable for all sorts of applications.

You could tell the The Ida side tables were made with love – Tubert Yule Furniture individually hand turn  blocks of Tasmanian Oak to create each slender table ~ and you there are six colours you can choose from!

We only came across Ruby Allen recently, and her stand was a stand out! All sorts of old bottles have been repurposed into functional new items including tumblers, carafes and jugs. The fun part was trying to recognise the original bottle (some easier than others!).

It was great to see so many designers incorporating sustainable design practices into their products.  With more design events in Melbourne coming up over the next few weeks, we hope to share with you even more new innovative and savvy sustainable designers.