Zara Home have created a home store which feels like a clothes store, or as they put it ‘fashion in the home’. Stretching over three floors, the store is filled with this season’s appealing bright colours that uplift the shopper. The shop is filled with decorative items, beauty products, crockery, cutlery, linen and towels, and even loungewear, at prices that make you want to hastily place everything in your basket. Although the stock is not as extensive as that in Habitat, nor the 400m2 space as awe-inspiring, what they do have is of high quality and extremely affordable. Zara Home offers an easy yet inspiring shopping experience, and the beautiful wrapping at the till is a great final touch.

One of the best satellite exhibitions during the New York Design Week was Mobile Living. The purpose of the exhibition was to look at innovative and new designs for housing, whether it be mobile homes, prefab homes or temporary homes. The exhibition was held at the Skylight Studios Gallery in Soho and the highlight of the show were futuristic cars. The  minivan hybrid Toyota F3R  brought home and transport together. The car can be reconfigured from three sets of seats to a sort of conversation lounge one might find in a home with full flat screen entertainment system, and ambient mood lighting. Scion also launched a similar car where the tailgate drops when the car is parked to provide an outdoor bench, speakers and drinks cooler.

Apple has opened their second New York store on 5th Avenue. The invitation said ‘Think Inside The Box’ (an ironic message for a company that is renowned for thinking outside the box), however the store is exactly what the invitation says. A giant glass cube entrance on street levels, next door to FAO Swartz, with a spiral glass staircase leading to an underground 25,000 square foot Apple retail store. The only street level signage is a giant apple suspended in the cube. The 24 hour  ‘Studio’ store is not only a retail site but a creative hub  where they will teach you one-to-one how to retouch photos, compose music, make Hollywood style movies, create podcasts etc. There is even an Apple Store Concierge you can log in with to make reservations to avoid long queues.

Barney today met his match when he came face to face with a large Japanese dog! Thankfully he was unharmed as the imposing animal turned out to be a large origami poster for an upcoming exhibition at the Conran Shop.

The Conran Shop will be holding a selling exhibition from September 4th to October 22nd entitled Wa – Japanese Style. Creative Director, Polly Dickens has put together, following a recent buying trip, a cross section of beautiful products from Japan, in as many materials, styles and price points as possible to illustrate what is available from this extraordinary country and to show the mix of classic, technical, handmade, whimsical and functional, which is what Japan is all about.

Yesterday, Minna and I went to The Designer of the Year exhibition at The Design Museum. The nominees of the most prestigious design award of the year were showcased: Tom Dixon for his furniture and lighting designs, The Guardian for their radical redesign of their newspaper, Cameron Sinclair for his work with the humanitarian design group Architecture for Humanity and Jamie Hewlett for his creation of virtual band Gorillaz.

Tom Dixon’s sofa piece was an amalgamation of opulence (brocade style fabrics and rich colours) and contemporary design. The Fresh Fat series made from strands of moulded licorice-like plastic looked edible, and there was also a mirror installation featuring his famous Manolo shoehorns.

His work with the virtual band Gorillaz made Jamie Hewlett this year’s winner. The detailed storyboards and profiles truly brought the four characters to life and made the group a real entity in the international music industry. It was fascinating to see Hewlett’s developmental process as co-creator of the band and the exhibition featured amazing drawings and footage from the MTV Awards and Cribs.