Your Guide To London Design Festival 2026
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5 days ago
Here's what to expect
Looking for things to do this month? Luck for you, there’s still plenty of design fairs and festivals coming to London in 2026. First up: London Design Festival, a spectacular showcase that brings together textiles, interiors and design, with exhibitions, installations and panel talks across the capital. Here’s how to make the most of this year’s show.
The C&TH Guide To London Design Festival 2026
What Is London Design Festival?
Born in the early Noughties and conceived by Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans CBE, London Design Festival is a sprawling juggernaut of events, exhibitions and installations dotted around the entire city. It’s funded by the Mayor of London (among others) and celebrates the capital’s bounty of design and designers alike.
London is still the ‘design capital of the world’, asserts this annual festival, a title bestowed on it by the New York Times in 2012. There’s no doubt that the construction, creative design and artistic industries of our city have faced challenges over the years, but London Design Festival seeks to challenge anyone who might suggest that the design scene here has not quite rebounded to its former glory. It’s easy to believe – the breadth of skill and artistry in this city remains as glorious as ever.
When Is London Design Festival 2026?
This year’s edition of London Design Festival takes place from 12 to 20 September 2026.
Where Is It?
As its name suggests, London Design Festival is spread across the capital. Exhibitions, panels, shows and events typically fall under one of the festival Design Districts.
Designed to highlight local creative communities, exhibitions and open studios, the Design Districts are distinct areas of London where events for the festival are grouped. This year’s cohort includes Brompton, Mayfair, Park Royal, Shoreditch, Chelsea, Bankside, EC1, Fleet Street, Dalston to Stokey, Soho and Blackhorse Creates (Blackhorse Lane, Waltham Forest). The festival is also supported by the Material Matters design fair and Shoreditch Design Week.
In total, the festival is typically made up of over 300 exhibitors across the capital. Check the website for a full list of events and where to find them.
What About The V&A?
Alongside the Design Districts, London Design Festival also has a central base in the capital where many of the week’s events take place: the V&A. The museum serves as the official central hub for the festival, filling its historic galleries in South Kensington with site-specific contemporary installations, talks and workshops – including the Global Design Forum. You can see the cultural institution’s list of events here.
The Global Design Forum
One of the headline programmes at London Design Festival is the Global Design Forum, a multi-day series of curated talks, keynote speeches and panel discussions. Held at the V&A South Kensington’s Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre, it brings together international speakers, practitioners and thinkers from architecture, design, science and business to discuss design as a catalyst for global and societal change. This year the event has been guest-curated by Rhiarna Dhaliwal, with the theme being ‘Worlds in Motion’.
Some highlights for 2026 include talks from Es Devlin CBE, Anab Jain, Liam Young and Natalie Melton. All curated talks are free to attend, but you’ll need to book a ticket. Find out more here.
When the Void Gazes Back by Eunjo Lee, an artist at the V&A for London Design Festival
Highlights: What To See At London Design Festival 2026
Keynote: Es Devlin CBE
London Design Festival’s opening day closes on its biggest name. Es Devlin CBE – the artist behind U2’s Sphere spectacular in Las Vegas, the Met’s Tristan and Isolde and some of the most talked-about stage sets of the last decade – sits down with LDF co-founder Ben Evans at the V&A talk all things art, architecture and performance. Expect a rare, unhurried look at how one of Britain’s most in-demand image-makers actually thinks. It’s free but ticketed, so bag your seat early.
Details: 12 September, 4-5pm, V&A South Kensington
In Conversation: Tricia Guild & Shelley Simpson, with Ben Spriggs
If anyone can talk colour, it’s Tricia Guild. The Designers Guild founder – a woman who’s been telling Britain how to layer print and pigment since the 1970s – joins Mud Australia’s Shelley Simpson at the brand’s King’s Road HQ for Mud Talks 11: The Language of Colour, moderated by ELLE Decoration‘s Ben Spriggs. Between them, decades of instinct on how colour brings warmth and personality to a home, followed by a chance to shop the Mud Australia pop-up with Ottolenghi canapés in hand. A proper treat for anyone who colour-codes their bookshelves.
Details: 14 September, 6-7.30pm, Designers Guild, King’s Road
Es Devlin CBE will be at the Global Design Forum
Rose Uniacke Home
Pimlico Road’s three-shop stretch of Rose Uniacke is always worth a wander, but LDF is the excuse to actually make time for it. Trained as a restorer long before she turned decorator, Rose Uniacke deals in the characterful pieces – antiques, her own furniture and lighting editions, custom-dyed fabrics – that make a room feel like it’s been lived in for generations. The flagship’s light-filled rooms and unvarnished boards sit alongside a darker, more intimate accessories shop, while the fabric shop across the road has two floors of linens, wools and silks in her unmistakable palette. No ticket required, so it’s an easy one to build a Chelsea design crawl around.
Details: Open throughout the festival, Pimlico Road
A Life in Colour: An Evening with Joa Studholme for Farrow & Ball
Eighty years in, Farrow & Ball is marking its anniversary the way it knows best – with a paint-soaked evening of storytelling. Joa Studholme, the brand’s Colour Curator for the past 30 years, holds court at the newly-30-itself Chelsea studio to unpick the history behind some of its most iconic shades and the design projects that shaped them. There’ll be canapés, a glass of bubbles and a gift for every guest, which is reason enough to RSVP even before you factor in Joa’s decades of anecdotes. Spaces are limited, so get in fast.
Details: 17 September, 6-8pm, Farrow & Ball Chelsea Studio, Fulham Road
The Future of Texture-Led Design: A Conversation with Michelle Ogundehin
Michelle Ogundehin – former ELLE Decoration UK editor and the woman millions know as the no-nonsense head judge on Interior Design Masters – heads to Shoreditch for the launch of Dimense Surface’s Collaboration Series, a new set of textured wallcoverings made with four international studios spanning London, New York and Tokyo. She’ll be in conversation with the designers on why texture, material honesty and sensory design are quietly taking over contemporary interiors, with an immersive showroom of the wallcoverings to walk through afterwards. By appointment only, so treat it like the insider preview it is.
Details: 15 September, 3-5pm, SCP Showroom, Shoreditch
