Be inspired by all the curious and creative trends at the Melbourne Design Fair

THE MELBOURNE Design Fair is the largest of its kind in Australia, bringing over 60 exhibitors and more than 150 established and emerging artists, furniture and industrial designers and ceramicists to the Melbourne Convention Centre to showcase collectable works. From plastered lamps, mid-century inspired furniture and functional objects d’art, it’s a chance to add to your personal collection, meet the makers and feel inspired by what’s happening in the design world. While the event has just concluded for another (creative) year, here’s a few interior design trends we noticed over the weekend to add to your 2023 moodboard. Note: some exhibiting artists are still selling some of their wares post-fair, so keep a watchful eye on their socials.

Related: 2023 Interior Design Trends: Mid-century magic and dining room decadence

THESE are the collectable TRENDS in AUSTRALIAN design right NOW. 

Heavy metal

The heavy metal genre finds its place in your home this season — not spinning on the turntable, but as the dining table stage piece. Melbourne architect, sculptor and designer Annie Paxton is known for her cast aluminium furniture and is all about using three specific materials — aluminium, chain mail and silk. She takes her cues from archival fashion couture collections — we see her fusion of metals and curves in the most elegant of finales. Edges on tables take angular turns that point to the avant-garde. Her signature Vestige table is robust and hotly collectable.  

“I’m all about making products that aren’t shiny, neat and clean, but those that show a rawness that exhibit how it was made. I love how cast aluminium is malleable and I create texture through that,” says Annie Paxton.

“The tables appear hand-made and I love immersing myself in archival couture from the past for ideas. I am also fascinated by technique and methods of weaving. The Vestige table is a great example of both of these things — there is beauty in the rawness and it’s saying hey, I am here to stay.”

For more information on her work, click here.

Playful plaster

Jordan Fleming’s Bright Things collection — available online at Modern Times or at his showroom/gallery on Smith St, Fitzroy — are the sort of object d’art pieces and lamps that fuse her childlike wonder and creature doodling into essential forms within the home. She works with plaster and uses raw pigments to make makes fruit bowl with the longest legs, one that is sure to be a kitchen conversation starter. While her lamps are also leggy statements with lots of personality.

“I love working with plaster and pigment — it’s chalky and visceral which I love, and it makes such a great talking piece in the home or where ever you decide to put them,” says the Melbourne designer and artist Jordan Fleming.

“I am also drawn to the emotional connections these forms have,” Fleming says. 

“The bowls give a sense that the object is rough and thrown together; but there’s a simplicity and freeness to it as well — and it’s all thanks to the fact that plaster has a short working time of five minutes. I am caught between the tension of possessing an experimental attitude and creating a minimalist form,” Fleming says. “And yes, a fruit bowl should have legs, why not?”

For more information on her work, click here.

Curvy sculptural

Furniture maker and sculptor Lauren Lea Haynes (of LLH Studio) is obsessed with limestone and sculpts her tactile tables by hand. She has found a medium that suits her physical nature and turns curvy stone into practical furniture. While her famous Foli cast aluminium tables are coated in earthy tones, her limestone furniture is brimming with Renaissance-like wonder.  

“Curves and rounded edges give a voluptuous overtone to my work and I don’t know why that is,” says Haynes. 

“It feels natural to work in this manner and they’ve become popular among collectors of my work,” she says. The furniture tales around eight weeks to make; her own personal space also accented by shapely objects. She makes furniture you want to hug and share your deepest secrets with.

For more information on her work, click here.

Text is best

Ceramic artist James Lemon is known for his tactile humorous works. When he’s not collaborating on fashion prints for Melbourne designer Erik Yvon’s runway show at AAFW in Sydney this week, he’s busy working in his Northcote pottery on a mission to tease and please. Best known for his playful installation at Melbourne Now’s Ian Potter titled Swarming — he brings a childlike charm to the aesthetics of ceramics.  The NZ born ceramicist is also putting texts on plates to turn the dining table conversation up a notch and having a lot of fun along the way. He was commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney in 2022 to craft a 60-piece dinner set with slogans such as Impotent and Horniest Here. What London designer Bella Freud is doing for kitsch knitwear with iconic phrases, Lemon is giving us his cheekiest with a BYO Plate you’ll want to gift as a house warmer. 

“The dinner table can be a socio-political hub, so it made sense to approach the dinner plates in this way and put some cheeky slogans on them,” says James Lemon. “There is always beauty and drama exchanged at the dinner table, so my work with these sweet phrases and not so sweet words adds to that tension and creates a new exchange between guests,” Lemon says. 

His latest show Sphexishness is showing at Sullivan + Strumpf Sydney until June 3.  He is proof that tongue in cheek is chic. 

Slogans such as All Your Insecurities Are Accurate might be too long for an Instagram hashtag and While Best Yourself Or Your Shit Qualities can rile the toughest of folks you know. For those who don’t want to be dropped by text, Lemon makes a gorgeous range of dinner plates without the banter. 

For more information on his work, click here.