The World of Interiors October 2021

1 Hands are both the subject of the decoration on Malaika’s 1.6 × 3m ‘Dally’ linen tablecloth (£331), and the means by which they are printed and embroidered. It’s one of several tableware items featuring the long-fingered mitts of the ‘Cosmic Dreams’ collection, inspired by ancient Egyptian tomb drawings and Egypt’s Surrealist movement. Ring 00 49 30 804 99042, or visit malaikalinens.com. 2 When Julie Lewis failed to find attractive extension cables to use in her Georgian house, which is sadly low on sockets, she got thinking. Lo, Lola’s Leads was born, offering one to 15m lengths (up to 50m on request), a plethora of colours and two-, four- or six-gang sockets. Prices start at £35. Visit lolasleads.co.uk. 3 Family-owned British furniture manufacturer Ercol embarks on its second century, and a new…

For details see page 222…

‘WHAT IS happening to our libraries?’ This question has long preoccupied Heather Peak Morison, an artist who’s worked with her partner, Ivan, since 2003, typically on ambitious projects that converse with landscape, community and history. So when Laurie Peake, director of the Super Slow Way, an arts commissioning programme in Pennine Lancashire, invited the duo to create a work on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, they thought of realising a space that would offer short stories, along with a place to read and write them, to people along the waterway. The resulting work, Small Bells Ring, is a public floating library housed in the research vessel Furor Scribendi, a narrowboat designed, decorated and furnished by the artists, which can hold around 1,000 volumes of short stories. The boat has spent…

Warm materials, tactile surfaces, products with a story to tell… Skilled craftsmanship and industrial technology combine in ‘Crogiolo’, a collection of small-size ceramic and stoneware tiles with a multiple identity. The eight constituent series from Marazzi – ‘Rice’, ‘Lume’, ‘Zellige’, ‘Scenario,’ ‘D Segni Blend’, ‘D Segni Scaglie’, ‘D Segni Colore’ and ‘D Segni’ – reinterpret the craftsmanship and manual skills of traditional potters for contemporary taste, while retaining all their distinctiveness. Versatile products, incorporating ideas and impressions from the past, reproduce the look and feel of tiles made by hand: inspired by the flaws typical of crafted ceramics, ‘Crogiolo’ products form a collection with an artisanal feel, one that expresses the narrative power of surfaces and material. Carefully graduated colours create intense, constantly changing hues, perfect for intimate, comfortable authentic…

IF YOU HAD strolled through the streets of old Gaziantep a century or so ago, you might have found your feet falling in step with the rhythmic click-clack of weavers at their work. Situated at a strategic point on the ancient trade routes between East and West, this Anatolian city is one of the world’s oldest settlements, having hosted a succession of ruling civilisations over six millennia, all of which helped to shape its fascinating culture. For centuries a thriving centre of weaving excellence, by 1900 it thronged with as many as 5,000 hand looms engaged in the creation of a precious and brightly coloured textile known as kutnu. Production in Gaziantep – its only centre of manufacture – had dwindled by the end of the 20th century, overtaken by…