Discover Design and Jewelry Highlights at PAD London 2025

Collectors, designers, and interior decorators thronged the booths of PAD London from its opening moment. The fair has always been buoyant throughout its previous 16 years, and this year was no exception. Interior designer Kelly Hoppen was seen scouring the aisles, while David Heyman—the uber producer of blockbuster films including Harry Potter, Paddington, and Gravity—was, he said, just there to help out his wife. She is, of course, Rose Uniacke, London’s doyenne of taste. Creative consultant Carlos Motta was busy inviting everyone to the launch of his latest book, Purple Fever (Vendome), the following night. “It’s about the color in all its shades,” he told Galerie. “In nature, in interiors. It’s one of the most luxurious and peaceful.” Spanish designer Jaime Hayon, meanwhile, swung by the booth of Galerie Kreo, which had one of his stunning mosaic vessels on show.  

A prize went to Faye Toogood for best contemporary work while Parisian upstart Sceners Gallery received the coveted best booth award—impressively, it was their first year participating. Francois Laffanour/Galerie Downtown was awarded for the most outstanding historic piece. The last was a winner in every sense, an extensive room panel in stunning rosewood made for the apartment of Léon Brill in 1924. After nearly 100 years in the same 16th arrondissement interior, it was removed two years ago. According to Laffanour, it may already have found a new home.  

Below, find highlights from this year’s edition.

1. Materials of the Old World at Glenn Spiro

Glenn Spiro takes antique jewelery, sometimes containing Golconda diamonds and old West African gold, and reappropriates the parts to create dazzling one-off pieces in his Mayfair workshop. It occupies the building which was once home to Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite couturier, Norman Hartnell. Spiro himself has more down-to-earth charm than Hartnell, but his work reaches greater heights. Stones that would be unfindable today are reset in astonishing ways. Unsurprisingly, several pieces sold within minutes of the fair opening. One was a heavy bangle made of old mammoth bone, connected with lavender jade and yellow, white, and brown diamonds. Another, a necklace of hand-carved emerald beads, culminated in an unfaceted emerald weighing 74.35 carats, in-set with a twinkling 12.75 K Burmese ruby.   

2. Hervé Van Der Straeten

Four decades ago, Hervé Van Der Straeten was making waves with modish metal jewelry statement pieces made in his Paris atelier. This year, he celebrates 25 years since opening his first design gallery in the Marais. “I really started making objects in the 1990s,” he recalls. “I was always working in bronze, and it seemed natural to expand my work to lighting and furniture.” The designer-gallerist’s jewelry background still infuses his work. “Everything is hand-made in my workshop under my supervision and has the same precision I brought to the small jewelry pieces. And I still like the same combination of graphic clarity and really good craftsmanship.” Known for his glamorous lacquer cabinets with concealed compartments inside—and their highly decorated exteriors—Van Der Straeten points to a minimalist console lacquered in bold planes of color. “I like both,” he says with a smile.  

3. Ori Orisun Merhav at Sarah Myerscough

Last year, the young Brussels-based designer Ori Orisun Merhav had a showstopping table and lamp set at Sarah Myerscough’s booth that demonstrated for the first time her investigations into natural insect lacquer. Amber-colored and blown like glass, the material glowed mysteriously. Now, Orisun has fashioned a table lamp using the same material, which stands on skinny steel legs coated in an “insect patina” that she developed this year. Its Art Deco vibes resonate with her adopted city, where the style abounds from buildings to door knobs. “I like it when people relate my work as functional,” Orison says, “but in my mind, it’s still sculpture.”  

4. Faye Toogood at Friedman Benda

For his gallery’s return to PAD London after a ten-year absence, Marc Benda invited Faye Toogood to design his booth and fill it with her favorite pieces. “I really like to show designers in their home cities,” says Benda. “Faye’s work is so closely linked to the U.K., its history, its artisans. It felt right to focus on her.” Given carte blanche, Toogood created a gabled ceiling in the booth and called the presentation The Magpie’s Nest. “From my own work, I selected pieces made over the last eight or so years that clearly demonstrate my love of materials,” she says. They include works from her Maquette series—where she took tiny paper models of her work and blew them up to 1:1 size. They have been cast in bronze as the Cardboard Box stool and the Paper Armchair, which is the winner of the contemporary prize. “It’s hand-painted to look like paper and weighs a ton,” Toogood says. “It’s completely ambiguous.”  

5. Brett Robinson at JCRD

The thirty-something Luiz Kessler and his gallery JCRD is one to watch. He specializes in mid-20th century furniture from his native Brazil, finding fine examples of an ever-dwindling supply by big names like Martin Eisler and Joaquim Tenreiro. But he’s far from stuck in the previous century. New to the booth is work by Manhattan Beach–born Brett Robinson, who moved from shop floor to interior design office to work for Ralph Lauren until 2015, when he left to open his own studio. Now still only 35 years old, Robinson demonstrates a hearty love of his metal workshop—and luxury fabrics. On show for the first time in Europe, small ottomans in polished aluminium are topped with Alpaca upholstery.  

6. Max Lamb at Gallery Fumi

Not content with working in Styrofoam and then cardboard, Max Lamb’s latest chairs for Gallery Fumi were made in ceramic with Stoke-on-Trent factory 1882 Ltd. This takes Lamb’s concern with the lack of waste to the next level. “We tend to work with people who haven’t worked in ceramic before,” says Emily Johnson, who revived the family ceramic business in 2011. “Max is someone we’ve invited back. He originally designed a range of vases using the same firing process.” The clay changes color from white to pink to black depending on the time it’s in the kiln. Fumi is showing one white chair, called Crockery.   

PAD London will be on view at Berkeley Square, Mayfair, until October 19.