Brompton Design District announces lineup for London Design Festival 2025

September is the month when interior-design lovers and experts descend upon the capital for the industry’s most important event: London Design Festival.

This annual celebration of all things design, art and architecture has become the most prolific and influential of its kind since its inception in 2003. Later, in 2006, South Kensington Estates established Brompton Design District as part of the event. In the world’s first planned cultural quarter (stretching from the V&A to Brompton Road and including Knightsbridge), Brompton Design District was created to profile the area’s heritage, cultural significance and modern design talent.

This year’s programme has been unveiled, with British-Italian curator and gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker taking the helm for the first time. His new curatorial theme, A Softer World, ‘explores softness as a form of strength. Against the backdrop of a changing world, softness becomes a deliberate design stance: one grounded in empathy and attentiveness’.

Joining as a Brompton Design District partner this year is Louise Bradley, an interior designer renowned for bespoke luxury interiors under her eponymous interior architecture and design studio. The Knightsbridge-based showroom will feature exclusive furniture, fabrics, lighting and accessories curated especially for the festival.

Other participating studios and designers include Charlotte Taylor, Darren Appiagyei, Myles Igwebuike, Andu Masebo, Rooms Studio, and the Royal College of Art’s 2025 Design Products graduates. Pieces by internationally renowned figures such as Patricia Urquiola, Antonio Citterio, Tobia Scarpa and Ronan McKenzie also feature. For the first time, Brompton Cemetery Chapel will serve as a festival venue, hosting a week-long design installation and a special live performance on Saturday 20 September.

The programme takes place across The Lavery (formerly Cromwell Place) and throughout the District. Brompton’s permanent design residents will also present new collections, with highlights including new launches from Italian heavyweights Molteni&C, Cassina, Arclinea and Armani/Casa.

On this year’s festival, Alex Tieghi-Walker commented:

‘From tactility and material memory to emotional resonance and poetic form, softness becomes a tool to reconnect: with each other, with the environments we inhabit, and with the objects we make and use every day… I hope visitors to the District will gain insight into the real-life design process, talk with designers and have the chance to join in the programming, whether it’s workshops, talks or events.’

London Design Festival takes place from 13-21 September 2025. For full information on Brompton Design District, including a map and events, see bromptondesigndistrict.com