Back to real business

I am experiencing a bit of a strange week. After being so extremely busy with setting up the webshop and offline shop, with interior projects, going to Milan, getting everything in place, it seems like we are landing right now. Last Friday we threw an awesome party to celebrate the official opening of the Femkeido Shop. We were already open for a few weeks but didn't have everything in stock yet, so decided to postpone the official opening to last week. Many thanks to everyone who came along and to everyone who made it happen that we are now out of stock some pieces again ;) 

This morning I took the time to fotograph some gorgeous items who have just arrived in combination with some of my own pieces. Above you see the J110 nature chair form HAY. A blanket from Ferm Living and a cushion form Tas-ka. On the photo on the right you see the marble stone table (M) from Zuiver a Kaleido tray from HAY and a beautiful vase from Lenneke Wispelwey. On the photo below you see the absolutely gorgeous plaind from the brand new ISH collection from Mae Engelgeer and the Harlequin wallpaper from Ferm Living at the back. On the photo on the right a cup from Donna Wilson and again a Kaleido tray from HAY. Everything is in stock.

Photo's: Femkeido

Farm lodge in Twente

We are on a well deserved holiday for a week. After many busy weeks, it is time to relax. We are staying in a stunning refurbished farm (Erve Heerman) from Droste's Boerderij Lodges in the eastern part of the Netherlands in an area called Twente. They are really nice contemperary styled and have luxury item such as crockery from Iitala and a Nespresso machine. There is enough space to play for my 2 boys and Kate is also anjoying her first holiday! We celebrated Queensday in a small village nearby yesterday, far away from the busy area's. Via Instagram, I found out that I just missed Cindy from My daily garbage, she and her family left on Monday and she also wrote a beautiful blogupdate about her stay here. 

 Photo's: Femkeido

Bye bye Bea

As our Queen Beatrix is abdicating on the 30th of April it is time to say goodbye to her. She has been our Queen almost as long as I am alive (33 years). I like her and I have always loved this painting made by Andy Warhol of her. It was made in 1985 in his serie: "Reigning Queens" Andy was the most content with the portrait of our Queen. This is what he said about it:

• Do you think these are your masterpieces?‛
• Queen Beatrix is! That’s the one I like the best because she is the best looking of the bunch‛

You can see this work in our newly openend Rijksmuseum!

Femkeido Shop: one step closer to official opening!

After Milan now back to normal days. Well normal days? At the Femkeido Shop we are working hard to get everything ready for the official opening on the 10th of May. Both Merel and I are going for a short break next week and I am busy with finishing off some great projects and starting off some new ones. I hop you all like the look of the shop opening invitation! Happy thursday!

Trends at the Salone del Mobile in Milan #3 GOLD

My last post about the Salone in Milan 2013. Tomorrow I will start with new things on my blog again. I saved the best for last! Gold!! I have a love/ hate relationship with gold. There are periods that I love the glamour of gold but I will always remember that I put myself in a very dangerous situation to once paint my huge golden mirror in my livingroom silver a few years ago. Anyhow, gold. More important about gold in fashion and interior is what it says about trends, about moods, about confidence. That last one; we all want to have confidence in a better economy. Confidence is a good thing in many ways. In my opinion using gold in designs tells us that these designers are condifent about the fact that better times are yet to come! So wether you like gold or not. Today GOLD is a good thing!

The photo's above are form the presentation a Tom Dixon

The photo below, of Sander Mulder you'd probably seen before in my post for Bloesem

Above a picture at Rosanna Orlandi and Moooi

Tradition Chaire Jaime Hayon

Impressions at the Salone del Mobile in Milan #1 Ventura Lambrate

Impressions at Ventura Lambrate, one of the design districts in de Milan Design week. In this district you can find a lot of young designers and design academy's who present their designs and final academy assignments. This year there was also a "Ventura at Work" venue were designers produced their designs on the spot. I love the buzz in Lambrate in these days. It is both edgy and inspiring!

Photo's by Femkeido

Trends at the Salone del Mobile in Milan #2 Colour

Before I traveled to Milan I spoke with several people who also visit the Salone every year and we were debating about what we would see this year. I quietly hoped on a bright and colourful Milan with lots of flowers and bright colours. When you see this post, you'd almost think that my dream came true. Yes, there was colour, there were bright colours. Moooi worked with colour, Scholten & Baijings did, at the Wallpaper presentation was a lot of colour to see and Moroso, Moroso thaught me most about colour. Why? Listen: Last year, I was intriged by visiting the Moroso showroom in Brera, where they always present their collection together with my favorite fabric label: Kvadrat. Last year the whole showroom was emerging and a bit dramatic red (see this post) This year, it felt like entering a garden. It felt like, not to worry about economic crisises anymore. I felt like, sit back and relax for now and next year, next year we will be partying!

Trends at the Salone del Mobile #1 Marble

Marble in many shapes and forms. Marble is officially back! Not so much in bathrooms or floors but more in tables, small tables to be more detailed, ideally small round tables. The most gorgeous tables I saw at Rosanna Orlandi from the English brand Sé. The combination with the the pastel colours, copper and grey tones are just right. At the Wallpaper products presentation in town they showed some bended marble table tops. and I spotted the rectangle tables in the Diesel hall in Ventura Lambrate.

Designers at the Salone del Mobile #1 Mae Engelgeer

I am back home from my trip to Milan. I've seen a lot again, even though I was ill for a few days :( 

Last year I decided to to a 15 day blog marathon to show the nicest photo's I made and to show you the upcoming trends. Some trends were still the same as last year, but I definately spotted some new ones for you. I am going to do it slightly different than last year. I am going to do posts about designers and posts about trends. Today I am starting off with Mae Engelgeer who presented her new textile collection ISH in Ventura Lambrate in Milan. Ofcourse beautiful as always, the print made me think of the alps. It was also nice to meet Mae as we've been in contact about selling her beautiful textiles in the Femkeido Shop. We will do soon, so stay tuned. Another surprising thing was the presentation of the woodstock collection (beautiful clothes racks) from Jeroen van Leur

Moooi at the Salone 2013 #Milan

Arrived last night in Milan for the Salone de Mobile 2013. Excited as always we installed ourselves in a great appartment, not too far form the city centre of Milan. We had some nice dinner in a local restaurant and went to sleep to dream about all what was coming the next few days. Today, I started the day at Tom Dixon and Rossana Orlandi (more to come about those visits later) At Tom Dixon, I spoke with Sander Mulder, when I asked him about a "must see" he tipped Moooi. Moooi? Who didn't really do anything the last 2 years at the Salone? Yes, Moooi - go and see it! And I did, luckily, I did. You could well say that Moooi is doing what the name stands for again. The presentation is big and attractive. This presentation was so good that they got away with presenting some of their wellknown Icons with it. Especially the photo's of Erwin Olaf in combination with the dolls was impressive. It has authenticity, warmth, rich materials, a flirt to the old (Dutch) days. Welcome back, Moooi!!

Report: The first days in the Femkeido Shop

We've just had the first 2 days in the brand new Femkeido Shop. We've had so much fun! Although we decided to open the shop "quietly" as we don't have all products yet, it actually wasn't so quiet after all, many friends and family came around to bring flowers, presents and wine and we even already had returning customers! And the best of all is: the weekend hasn't finished yet. We are open tomorrow (Sunday) We are already part of a shopping window tour (delftse levende etalagedag) How cool is that? Yes, you could say we've had a good start. Hope to see you around some day at the Papenstraat 12 in Delft!