Mercedes Museum, Stuttgart

Visiting a prosperous, well-ordered German City is always great, so I skipped the odd afternoon at the R & T exhibition to explore Stuttgart.

It was lovely to sit in the sun, eating apfelstrdel in the Schloss area, and I also visited the Mercedes Museaum. In truth, I've never been that interested in cars, but my mum loves her little A-Class, and Mercedes are an icon of engineering and design.



The museum is pretty amazing (the photo above is not mine, but the rest are).  I loved the elevators, that were something from a Fritz Lang film

 

the first engine

the first cars

the first motorcycle

and the early Merc's

The fantastic supercharged cars of the '20's & 30'S



The aero engines of the 40's (sorry, but I took no pictures)... but I did take a pic of this cute 50's van

The gull-wing 60's and the 'bad guys'car



In the 70's, I vagely remember the most glamorous of my parents friends driving one of these 'pagoda roof' Merc's

I had a go in the race simulator, and couldn't stop laughing as I skid through turns in a 30's Silver Arrow racer, or had a go round Monte Carlo in an F1 car. Two people sit in the simulator, and my companion turned out to be a good German gentleman who'd raced Porsche’s round Le Mans (I apologised for my bad driving).



When my dad was 5yrs old, he remembers that his dad took him to a race meeting where he saw the 1936 Mercedes and Auto-Unions cream the old-fashioned British cars. These cars are in the museum too



The clever Germans end the museum with a showroom of their latest cars. I can tell you that after seeing their greats from the past, I was ready to sign up for anything as I sat in their latest SLK or new C-class coupe.

My only reservation was that my family are dyed-in-the-wool MG, Triumph, Jag or BMW people (only my mum has gone Mercedes).

The museum reminded me of the restless nature of the clever German people. This reminded me of how my own company, New House is always seeking improvement too, and believe it's important to keep presenting the very best in new design to the customer. 

R & T, Stuttgart

R & T (Weltleitmesse für Rollladen, Tore und Sonnenschutz) is one of those big behind-the-scenes trade shows that the public rarely see. It's a 'must' if you're interested in roller blind hardware, awnings, garage doors or having your gate open automatically.

R & T is now held at the excellent Stuttgart Flughafen/Messe - that's just 800 metres from Stuttgart airport, so it's not difficult to get to the fair.

We spent most of our time on our Swedish partner (Almedahls-Kinna AB) stand, but our real mission was to promote the New House vision of how roller blinds could develop over the next 5- 10 years.  

Our moodboards, colours & design ideas were prepared for 2013/2014, and we showed them to a few favoured international clients.

Due to my camera packing up I can't show our presentation - but will do so in the future!

Hooray - new items are here!

We always love it when new products come in....

Charlotte Farmer designed some new mugs and tea towels that we showed at HOME, and they went down so well that we got loads of orders!

Our UK factory delivered the mugs today, and her new tea towels will be here tomorrow

My favourite, and the one I'll definitely be sipping tea from (come Diamond Jubilee Day) is Charlotte's 'woof' mug - take a look at http://www.newhousetextiles.co.uk/product/4599/312/jubilee-woof-mug

HOME - London 2012

It doesn't feel long since New House appeared at Top Drawer in Autumn, but here we are exhibiting again!

This time we've showing at HOME, which is a classy off-shoot of Top Drawer in Earls Court Two, London 15th - 17th january.

Have you ever set up a stand? If so you'll know it's all about preparation, loading the van, setting out long-before dawn, feeling a little nervous (before turning up at some hall), and then making your space our own. This is us with our boxes, getting stuck in...

Just arrived

Setting up our washing line

Charlotte writing the captions (bobble caps show how freezing Earls Court was)

M & C in front of our (almost ) finished stand

We've got some great new designs - some new tea towels and mugs, and especially the Diamond Jubilee souvineer sets. I don't have the pics to show you .....but let's say me and all the New House staff are busy buying up the Jubilee souvineer items - they are that good! 

Laura Fletcher Cushions

This weekend we launched some lovely new products on our website:
newhousetextiles.co.uk
These include my range of stripey cushions, so please check them out!

The cushions were inspired by my photography of nature and of old antiques and are woven locally at a mill in Suffolk, using a mixture of soft wools, silk, linen and cotton. I like to use a neutral backround to my cloth and add a pop of colour in the stripes as I love playing with colour and proportion. I have used herringbone and sateen weave structures to keep the colour saturated as much as possible.

Sweet Things

When new products arrive it's always exciting opening the boxes for the first time. Charlotte Farmer's new tea towels are here and look great!

As soon as we take the proper pics, they'll be on our website...

                                                      Sunday Sundae

                                                     Sweet Shop

                                                     Pick n'Mix

New York, friendly New York

It's been over 12yrs since I was last in NY, so was especially happy when work demanded I make a new visit.

New House already has some really great North American customers, so after showing at Trade Fairs like Top Drawer and other things, we are happy that we might be moving up one or two gears in the States.

NY people are always meant to be in a huge hurry, but my first experience was of a very lovely lady who explained the NY Subway system to me (insisted on paying my ticket), and later a taxi driver asked 'how much do I want to pay?' These two kind people really won me over. I'm from a tiny English village where you expect curtesy.... but New York???  I beamed at everyone after, most people smiled back and I really enjoyed my visit.

My hotel room overlooked the most famous building site in the world, the 9/11 site. It was very moving looking down on the construction, happy that I wasn't visiting 10 years ago :

                                                     

I'd forgotten how big American beds were - I know it doesn't look SO big in my photo, but to me this felt like sleeping on top of an aircraft carrier, with miles to walk each morning to reach the alarm clock.

USA can have a very different style to Europe, so I visited some of the great shops like ABC Carpets and home or Anthropologie .

 

top floor at ABC

    

 Anthropologie

The best cheese sandwich I've ever had came from Beecher's - a micro-cheesery that make fresh cheese on the premises. I've never had a toasted cheese and fig sandwich before - but theirs has got to be up there amongst some of the most memorable gourmet foods I've ever tasted.

 

Beechers

Walking the High Line was my most interesting NY experience. It's an old raised level railway that originally served New York with goods, but had fallen into disuse years ago and was mostly demolished. However some of the local residents spotted how plants had taken root on the deserted railway, and campaigned for it to become a park. It's the best bit of urban re-design I've seen in years.