New Alabasta Blue Fish placemat and tablemat design

In addition to the 28cm round Blue Fish placemat we now have a rectangular version in two sizes launched with summer in mind. These are coloured in the original rich dark blue as the trays - the round version is in a brighter ultramarine. The new ones feature five swimming fish in typical intricate Alabasta style against an ivory background with a faint pale blue wave. The design works well on both placemat and tablemat sizes, depending on how bold you like your patterns. The coaster with the fish coming up for air is now also currently available in the darker blue and in a square 10cm format as well as the round in brighter blue. They are all available to order from Avenida Home whether you are an individual or a shop purchasing wholesale.

Alabasta Blue Fish 29x21cm placemat and 10cm square coaster

Alabasta Blue Fish 38x29cm tablemat

Alabasta designs for Avenida Home at Tent London 2012

The official launch of the Avenida range of tabletop accessories has happened in the last few days at Tent London and it seems to have gone very well. Tent is part of London Design Festival, an exciting city-wide series of Design events and launches and it takes place in the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane in London's East End. Last year my Alabasta trays were there as part of the Åry Trays stand (see this post) and this year their UK agent Isabel Saiz was there launching her own collection of mats, coasters and glass platters with her new separate venture Avenida Home. I was there on the first day and there was a very good response so I will be posting any developments from the show as soon I hear about it.

Here a few quick shots of the stand - lots of eye catching colours and patterns set off against a dark and moody background:

Isabel Saiz (on the left) on her way to chat to some friendly Dutch journalists on the first morning

The Alabasta and Michael Angove corner at the Avenida Home stand at Tent London

Avenida Home's Alabasta presentation at Tent 2012

All the Avenida products are available to buy online from Avenida Home.

'Home' trade show, London, January 2012

A belated Happy New Year! I've just returned from two weeks in colourful and inspiring Cuba and I'm now looking forward to some Alabasta related developments in the coming months. New home products have been sampled that relate to the current collections of trays and will be shown here as soon as they are launched.

Right now, however, Åry Trays are over from Sweden and have a stand (F12) at 'Home', the brand new London homewares trade show where retailers can see and order from the whole selection of their birch wood trays, including the Alabasta Blue Fish and Folk Stripe collections. Home is a new show from the organisers of the long established gift trade show Top Drawer and is running alongside it at Earls Court. It is being described as 'the definitive new trade event for homewares and interior accessories' and runs until tomorrow, 17th January. I'm going along tomorrow in my delirious jet lagged state to check it out.

A rather belated Happy New Year. 
49cm Alabasta Blue Fish tray.

Monochrome trays - get them while you can

38cm Flower tray. Photo: Asta Barrington

The new Folk Stripe trays may be getting all the glory at the moment but I thought I would draw attention to their quieter monochromatic cousins today as they are about to become extinct. The Flower trays and the Black Fish trays will only be available until stocks run out. Because there's a limit to how many designs a manufacturer will produce the Flowers have sadly had to move aside but may hopefully come back one day in a more colourful reincarnation. The bestselling Blue Fish is evidently more popular than the black version so that is discontinuing too. It's a ruthless world.

Design My World is a UK based online shop stocking interesting contemporary home products, founded in 2006 by Dean Hart and Venka De Rooij. At the moment they've got the Flower trays in the bestselling 38cm size (shown above) and a useful one-cup-and-a-piece-of-cake 27x20cm size, as well as the Fish trays and sandwich boards in black. 

If you like the graphic monochrome look of these trays don't hesitate to order them before they sell out... 

49cm Black Fish tray. Photo: Asta Barrington



Quite a catch

Telegraph Saturday magazine 2nd April 2011

The first press article for Alabasta, my new home wares label