When the marketing people behind the shop Fritz Hansen shares with Skandium offered Modern Shows a pop-up window and party in their fabulous shop and showroom at 13 Margaret St W1 we felt like we had just won the golden ticket to Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Our shows and popular web directory, The Modern Marketplace, are where people who share our unbridled passion for midcentury modern furniture and design go to buy early productions of the beautiful pieces that companies like The Republic of Fritz Hansen continue to produce so it was only fitting we collaborate.

Modern Shows is honoured to follow Sir Paul Smith, the Royal Philharmonic and the Nordic Film Festival, in being able to curate our very own window. Now up for the world to see for the WHOLE OF OCTOBER on the Great Titchfield side of the shop, our window highlights our humble beginnings as a pop up shop in founding partner Lucy Ryder Richardson’s house. We have transported a piece of Lucy’s kitchen to the centre of town and added an amazing backdrop.

 Nature has always been the best setting for Scandinavian design. It inspired so many of its most iconic pieces. So it is only fitting that the early Arne Jacobsen table Lucy and Petra continue to hold meetings around twelve years later, the 70’s Lily chairs and the shelves behind stacked with pieces from Petra and Lucy’s own collection: Jacob Bang, Tapio Wirkkala, Jens Quistgaard et al should be surrounded by a mythical wood, a collaboration with super-talented illustrator and ceramicist Louise Wilkinson, here mentioned in an earlier blog.  

Because we have a huge mailing list of dealers from all over Europe that we can contact in seconds and the leverage to get the right price for our customers, Modern Shows now has an interiors service Midcentury Modern™ Sourcing which has helped Saatchi & Saatchi create Mad Men style playrooms for its workers in the past and more recently sourced furniture and shop display for Brixton Brindisa. Lucy used to be a stylist and journalist, loves mixing midcentury with modern and has worked for Vogue, the Guardian, The Independent, iD etc in the past. Petra, a former graphic designer with a band of loyal midcentury dealers to tap into heads up the midcentury side of our shows and was behind the Brixton Brindisa refit. If you need any help with a project please contact: lucy@modernshows.com   or petra@modernshows.com

Shop the window – Contact lucy@modernshows.com :

Early white Lily chairs 1970 by Arne Jacobsen as commissioned for  The Danish National bank. Buy as a set of 4 or as a set of 6. £498 each

Early teak hammerhead 3103 chairs by Arne Jacobsen 1955 design, 60s production. Set of 4 for £1800Otherwise £500 each

Rare Azilal rug –  handknotted Moroccan rug created in the Azilal Province as seen in early Modernist’s houses like Le Corbusier, Bruno Matthsson, The Eames and Alvar Aalto. Available immediately. £1100 (228 cm length x 114 cm width)

Arne Jacobsen table. £2400

Specific jens Quistgaard enamels and teak ice buckets can be sourced in our sourcing emails out to 600 dealers Europe-wide Bang glass, Tapio Wirkkala and Arabia ceramics can also  be sourced in our sourcing emails out to 600 dealers Europewide

Round black cut felt table setting – £150 – also available as a rug £350   

We will always try and get you the best deal.