Spotted: A Rather Cool Chair

My parents being the nurturing, caring and supportive peeps they are took me to Art in Action in Oxford at the weekend.

"There's some really cool chairs that would look good on your blog" they said and so off we set to be surrounded by creative people.

I've never been surrounded by so many creatives in my life, and despite my rather inappropriate choice of footwear (flip flops and the grounds of a house subjected to a torrential downpour the night before do not mix) it was a brilliant day.

Ceramics creators, textiles geniuses, jewellery designers, artists, sculptors were all displaying their wares. I have to say it made me feel rather humble. Let's just say, art has never been my strong subject - my creativity has always displayed itself in the form of words and definitely not painting or drawing.

As much as I loved walking around all the tents, it was the woodwork one that drew my attention as that's where I knew the chairs would be.

So, after trying not to fall over in the mud for the 50th time that day, I entered the tent and was not disappointed.

I rather resembled a tourist wandering around London as I snapped pics of some of the coolest chairs I'd ever seen.

Those pictures of course remain on my camera, not yet downloaded (oh give me a break, I've been busy working) but while they still wait, here's a sneak preview.

This is the Lobi Loi chair by Chair Creative. I love the raw, almost unfinished quality - which I'm told by someone in the know is a very hot trend for AW09, presumably to make us all feel really guilty for our desire for bling and glitz.

I urge you to check out Chair Creative's other designs, because you definitely won't see these on the high street.

By the way, my Dad printed the first ever Art in Action catalogue over, erm, lots of years ago. You could say print's in the blood...

Guilty Posting

Do you know, I can't even bear to look at the last post I wrote because it was agggeeesss ago, which is not good.

After all, there's no one else to write this blog for me - no editorial staff of 10 (one day, one day...) to look after it for me - there's just me, myself and I and I feel terribly guilty about not having updated it since the middle of May...

...there, I've said it and it feels a bit like going to an AA meeting (by the way I do NOT know what happens at AA meetings) so "My name is Alexandra Toso and I haven't blogged for a long time" now on with the post...

Chairs haven't gone away of course since I last wrote, in fact I've discovered even more beautiful ones in my hiatus and this one comes from the discovery of a furniture design company new to me.

Benchmark (available at Furnish) is fast becoming a favourite of mine.

Simply because they make really stunning furniture, when frankly we live in a world where people think they can turn out any old tatt.

The Alvis chair has pretty cool design credentials given it came from the mind of the godfather of design Sir Terence Conran but that aside looks stunning too.

I love the clean lines, simple shape and above all I love the fact it can be upholstered in your own fabric. I think it would look pretty cool in velvet or perhaps a retro pattern.

I promise there won't be such a long space between postings not now I've got my mojo back...