We LOVE LONDON, especially at this time of the year (LDF) because we get to collaborate with people that we love and to realize the most exiting work!
Love London, a new brand, launching autumn 2011 at Olympia exhibition halls, London, is a book of photographs – and wallpaper, murals, bone china,tea towels and more. Love London products launch at Top Drawer Olympia 11-13 September stand D36.
Barbara Chandler’s book of photographs, titled Love London, is published this autumn by Batsford www.annovabooks.com. 
It is a neat little hardback, beautifully designed and bound, and small enough to slip into a bag - and it only costs £9.99. With its 180 colour and black-and-white photographs, Londoners are loving it (to keep or for a present), and tourists, too, are snapping it up at gift boutiques, museum shops, and book stores all over the capital. Amazon has already re-ordered. Photographs are teamed with over 100 quotes about London, from 15th century poetry to a modern blog, with Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Dickens and many many more along the way. Love London - the book - is launched to the trade at Top Drawer Autumn 2011, London’s major show at Olympia for high-quality design-led home and fashion accessories and gifts. And here Love London will also launch its own brand of wallpaper and murals, tea towels, cushions, roller blinds, aprons, bone china collectibles, and more.
It all started with the tea towels. “I have always wanted to see my photographs printed onto fabric,” says Barbara. “And tea towels seem perfect – the proportions are just right.” Barbara has a long friendship with Digetex, who have state-of-the-art digital printing machinery in Manchester. Managing director Roger Wills, and creative director Debbie Mckeegan founded their company in 2003, the first to see the potential of, and to heavily invest in, new ground-breaking digital fabric-printing technologies.
Indeed, now that printing onto wall coverings and fabric is so sophisticated and in such high detail, it becomes possible for artefacts such as a tea towel or a cushion to be a photograph in its own right – just printed onto something a little different. “So that’s what I am doing with DigetexHOME,”
says Barbara. Photo-printed tea towels cost £9.99, and cushions from £40. “We are also producing superb photo-printed murals of London scenes and people, which can fill a whole wall – and that’s incredibly exciting for a photographer.” Roller blinds are another option.
www.digetexhome.com
Bone china was another medium Barbara hankered after. Again a friendship – this time with Paul Bishop, director of The New English in Stoke-on-Trent – has led to a first edition of four Love London beautiful bone china photo-printed wall plates, and a series of six little trinket boxes, all printed (digitally again) to a very high quality. The New English is unique in combining contemporary art and graphics with old ceramic crafts, but is breaking fresh ground here in the use of photography and digital printing.
www.thenewenglish.co.uk
Putting Love London fabrics onto chairs (or even a settee...) is master craftsman Andrea Simonutti of North London’s Urban Upholstery (more friends), who, together with artist/designer Patrizia Sottile, rescue abandoned pieces of furniture and expertly reinvent them as vintage. “I see upholstery as an art,” says Andrea, “and we are passionate about transforming old piece.” www.urbanupholstery.com
Partnering Barbara in the Love London launch is Sahra Gott, the highly successful communications and brand manager for Kevin McCloud. “She is holding my hand all the way, and shaping our brand,” says Barbara. “I could not do this without her.”
All Love London products are designed and made in England – textiles and wallpapers in Manchester,
china in Stoke-on-Trent, and upholstery in London. “We will never take Love London out of the UK,” Barbara and Sahra vow. “Love London made in China would be a contradiction in terms.”
Barbara Chandler is a journalist best known for her design writing. But she is also an accomplished photographer who has been exhibiting and selling her work for nearly 25 years. Her framed prints currently sell in the Conran Shop worldwide. She has been making her unique handmade photo-cards since the early 90s. Each has a genuine photographic print stuck down and signed by Barbara – a real signed photo to send or frame at very modest cost. These have been the Conran Shop’s best selling range of cards, and some of the images have now sold in thousands, through other shops, markets, and Barbara’s own website. Her show Love London at Habitat on Regent Street in September 2008 was a sell out, with an edition of 200 mounted, framed and signed prints.
In the introduction to her book Love London Barbara observes that “vibrant, buzzing, thrilling London is on a roll - it is now considered the capital of the world.” She laughs – “and now my photographs are literally on a roll, too, along with tea towels and plates. For me this is thrilling, too. Photography, essentially an art of innovation and discovery, now has a new dimension.”
* A percentage of profits from appropriate images on Love London merchandise will be given to appropriate charities.
Contacts
Press/marketing enquiries for Love London, the book (published by Batsford): Komal Patel,
Anova Books, tel: 020 7605 1466;
kpatel@anovabooks.com
Press/marketing enquiries, for Love London products: Sahra Gott: tel: 01243 816611;
sahra@mulberryhousepr.co.uk
For more background, quotes and interviews: Barbara Chandler; tel: 020 8987 2737;
07970 700 775; Barbara@barbarachandler.co.uk
Digetex: Debbie McKeegan: tel: 0161 873 8891; debbiemc@digetexhome.com
The New English: Paul Bishop: tel: 01782 373469; paul@thenewenglish.co.uk
Urban Upholstery Ltd : Andrea Simonutti, tel 0207 275 9436; info@urbanupholstery.com
barbara@barbarachandler.co.uk
www.lovelondon.uk.com
Love London, with 180 photographs by Barbara Chandler is on Amazon
http://amzn.to/qmXaGw
Love London products launch at Top Drawer Olympia 11-13 September stand D36
www.lovelondon.uk.com
