DENIS KENNY and his colleagues of Ceadogán Rugs from Wellington Bridge in Wexford, makers of high-class rugs, have been on a three-day week for the last 18 months, but hope springs anew.
The company was one of a dozen Irish firms yesterday to form “Design Island: the Cream of Irish Design” at the Tent London exhibition in the Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, east London.
Tent London is one of the largest design trade shows that feature during the London Design Festival each September.
“You have to push the boat out. I am probably a bit old for this, but it helps to be all here together,” Kenny says, although, like the others, he is aware that international sales will take time to build.
Helped by a visit from U2 guitarist The Edge, the designers, involved in lighting, furniture, rugs, textiles and sculpture “cleverly combine craftsmanship with contemporary styling”, according to the exhibition’s organisers.
Up to 20,000 visitors from 44 countries are expected to visit Tent in the coming days. “The top people will go to the design shows in London, Paris and New York, but they won’t come to the ones in Dublin, Glasgow, or Cardiff,” says designer Shane Holland.
His line of Ruray table lighting has begun to attract internet attention in recent weeks, but “shows like this help to overcome the fact that people outside Ireland don’t have a huge awareness of Irish design.
“We have to export to make sense of our businesses,” adds Holland, whose company is fitting out a Russian-themed restaurant in London’s fashionable Mayfair district. “If we are not in places like this, we are waiting for them to come to us.”
Each of the designers has paid to exhibit, although half of the costs are met by the Crafts Council of Ireland. “The tougher the climate gets, the more creative and switched on they get, and they are determined to succeed,” the council’s Brian McGee says.
In the days of the plenty, Knut Klimmek built the boardroom table for AIB and the Central Bank, but much of his company’s market “disappeared over the last couple of years”, with the collapse of many architectural firms that would have chosen his wares.
“We had to reinvent ourselves with more sculptural pieces, but in the last two months there seems to have been a bit of a lift,” Klimmek tells The Irish Times. “There were more inquiries coming in than there had been. I am reluctant to say it’s over, but it does seem to be getting better.”
Ben Gabriel, based in Derrykeel, Loughrea, Co Galway, has developed a new line of shelves and wine racks that use corrugated galvanised sheeting “that has been weathered by being out in the rain for 50 years in the west of Ireland”.
The look of the range, which is being sold online from €300 upwards, has intrigued exhibition visitors in London and, earlier, in Cheltenham. “They couldn’t figure out how it was done,” he says with a smile.
Online sales will be central to the growth of many of the Irish firms at the Tent exhibition. “It has changed so quickly,” Gabriel adds. “Ten years ago, I would never have thought that people would buy furniture over the internet, but they do, in increasing numbers.”
Some of the exhibitors, such as Ben Archer of Wedge Design and Furniture based in Dublin’s East Wall, want to move out of simply being regarded as a crafts manufacturer. “We have designed the furniture in such a way that it can be mass-produced: less craft and more focused on design and finish. I’m trying to build up a range of furniture that can be sold online,” Archer says.
Progress, though, will be hard- won. Richard Lyons, whose company Omos makes outdoor furniture in Naas, Co Kildare, says: “People like to see you at the show next year and preferably in the same place.”