Inside PAD London 2025: Art & Design

Step Inside PAD London 2025: Art & Design

PAD London 2025: Art & Design

In a city where creativity never sleeps, there’s one event that turns design into poetry. Where a mid-century armchair can sit beside a contemporary sculpture and somehow, it just works? Every October, in the heart of London’s Mayfair, that dialogue comes alive at PAD London 2025: Art & Design. Founded in 2007 by visionary collector Patrick Perrin, the fair has evolved into one of the world’s most celebrated showcases of design excellence.

Now in its 17th edition, PAD London transforms Berkeley Square into a haven for collectors, curators, and design lovers alike. Here, heritage meets experimentation, and beauty takes on countless forms, from the refined craftsmanship of legacy galleries to the daring visions of emerging creators. Each stand feels like a private conversation between eras, aesthetics, and emotions.

So, ready to step inside? Let’s wander through the pavilions, discover the stories behind the objects, and explore the world of PAD London 2025: Art & Design, where creativity, culture, and design meet in perfect harmony.

PAD London 2025: Art & Design – Judges

To judge the finest creations and curatorial feats of the week, PAD London 2025 gathered a jury as refined as the fair itself. A constellation of tastemakers chosen with unmistakable precision. This year’s panel brings together design visionaries, collectors, and cultural innovators whose eyes are trained on excellence from every angle.

Among them, great names of modern design such as Beata Heuman, known for her joyful eclecticism and playful sophistication; Faye Toogood, whose conceptual yet deeply human approach blurs the boundaries between art, craft, and function; Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, bringing an architectural vision rooted in elegance and innovation; and Tom Dixon, a pioneering force in contemporary British design renowned for his bold material experimentation and sculptural sensibility. Together, they form a dialogue of perspectives, ensuring that every award at PAD London 2025 reflects not just aesthetic brilliance, but true emotional resonance.

PAD Prizes 2025:

Every edition of PAD London 2025: Art & Design culminates in a moment of anticipation, the announcement of the fair’s most coveted awards. This year was no exception, with the jury celebrating creativity across three categories: Best Stand, Contemporary Design Piece, and Historical Design Piece.

Taking the spotlight, Sceners Gallery made a dazzling debut, winning Best Stand for a scenographic presentation that perfectly balanced narrative and visual tension. The Contemporary Design Award went to Faye Toogood, whose Maquette 208 / Paper Chair, a cast-aluminium sculpture disguised as furniture, blurred the line between function and fantasy. Finally, the Historical Design Prize honored Galerie Laffanour Downtown, presenting rare 1920s oak panels by Pierre Chareau that reminded visitors that true modernity often begins with timeless craftsmanship.

In true PAD spirit, the awards reveal the fair’s essence, a celebration where past and present, imagination and precision, coexist in perfect harmony.

There’s a certain magic in walking through PAD London 2025: Art & Design, that quiet hum of discovery as one stand fades into another, each unveiling a distinct world of ideas, textures, and emotions. Here, design transcends function; it becomes narrative, personality, and poetry.

Every gallery brings its own voice, from bold experiments in form to meditative studies in materiality. Together, they compose a symphony of creativity that captures the essence of today’s most visionary design thinking.So, let’s wander through some of the fair’s most unforgettable spaces, where imagination meets craftsmanship, and design tells its most compelling stories.

Inside the Fair: Five Must-See Exhibitions Defining PAD London 2025

MAISONJAUNE STUDIO

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Maisonjaune Studio presents a booth conceived as a lived-in dialogue between eras and disciplines. The stand introduces Avalon, the gallery’s first furniture edition, where soft, sculptural forms like the Cadaques armchair and Cloud chandeliers meet an unreleased piece unveiled for the fair. Complementing these are rare works from Ingo Maurer’s Uchiwa collection like the Hana Chandelier and Les Murmures, a poetic blue ceramic installation by Juliette de Ferluc, creating a harmonious interplay of light, craftsmanship, and emotion.

GALLERY FUMI

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Gallery FUMI invites visitors into a world where tradition meets daring creativity. Hand-carved masterpieces like Carlès & Demarquet’s Vestige Table shimmer with the fluidity of water, while Kingsnorth’s sculptural armchair transforms industrial forms into playful, anthropomorphic art. Jeremy Anderson’s Ephyra Cinque chandelier adds an intricate, meditative flourish, uniting detail and impact. Every piece on display reflects the gallery’s vision: craftsmanship and innovation in perfect harmony, bridging heritage with modern design.

GALLERY NILUFAR

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Nilufar Gallery once again proves why its founder, Nina Yashar, is one of the most discerning curators in the collectible design world. The gallery’s presentation unfolds as a poetic dialogue between eras, where vintage icons and contemporary creations converse through form, texture, and light.

This gallery stand out as a poetic interplay of material (bronze, glass, resin, and wood), through the works of contemporary designers. Among the highlights, the Low Table Prescient Vortex by Flavie Audi seems to ripple like captured energy, while Christian Pellizzari’s Ceiling Lamp Phisophorum Floating and Floor Lamp Petra Aere illuminate the space with sculptural grace. Beneath the warm glow of Thar, a wall lamp by Vikram Goyal, stands his Console Grand Castello, a masterpiece of hammered metal and architectural poise.

Completing the ensemble, an Armchair by José Zanine Caldas anchors the composition with organic balance, bridging past and present in a refined yet daring harmony that encapsulates Nilufar’s timeless curatorial vision.

FRIEDMAN BENDA 

At Friedman Benda, Faye Toogood’s installation The Magpie’s Nest is more than a display, it’s a glimpse into the designer’s lifelong ritual of collecting. Toogood has long been drawn to the poetry of found objects, pebbles, twigs, fragments of everyday life , gathering them, arranging them, and uncovering quiet patterns within their imperfection.

This habit, she admits, has become both creative fuel and a personal archive of beauty shaped by nature and time. Over the years, many treasures have been lost or given away, yet those that remain are infused with meaning, tiny relics of curiosity and wonder.

Now, she sees this same instinct reflected in her daughter, Indigo, who continues the lineage of collecting, arranging, and reimagining these small worlds of discovery. In The Magpie’s Nest, that intimate impulse becomes something larger — a meditation on how design can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, one carefully chosen object at a time.

(Image credit: Photography by Genevieve Lutkin, courtesy of Friedman Benda and Faye Toogood)

 JACQUES LACOSTE

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Galerie Jacques Lacoste invites visitors to step into the glamour of Art Deco, where elegance meets playful sophistication. Two standout icons, Paul Iribe’s Hairdresser (circa 1916) and Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann’s Hairdresser’s Chair “Retombante” (circa 1916), showcase a refined dialogue between clean lines and precious materials.

The stand is further enriched by Ruhlmann’s dining table (circa 1932), Paul Dupré-Lafon’s three-panel screen stamped Hermès (circa 1930), and his leather sofa with brass footboard (circa 1929), alongside sculptural touches like a Serge Roche mirror and vases by Jean Besnard. Adding a contemporary sense of balance, Diego Giacometti’s pair of X-shaped stools (third version, circa 1960) float between strength and lyricism, proving that at PAD London 2025: Art & Design, timeless craftsmanship can feel anything but static.

After wandering through the fair’s most captivating galleries, PAD London 2025: Art & Design continues to reveal its magic in the details and what better way to experience that than through the furniture itself? Beyond the grand displays, it’s the individual pieces that truly tell the story of contemporary design today: bold forms shaped by hand, rare materials reimagined, and craftsmanship elevated to an art form.

Each creation embodies a designer’s philosophy, balancing functionality with emotion, innovation with tradition. From sculptural silhouettes to quietly poetic textures, and enigmaic lights, these works invite a closer look, intimate encounters where design becomes personal, tactile, and endlessly inspiring.

Tiago Braga – Suspension “Arandu Estelar” @ BRAZIL MODERNIST / Pereira & Matis

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Tiago Braga’s Suspension “Arandu Estelar” invites visitors into a luminous dialogue between contemporary design and ancestral craft. Hailing from Osório in Brazil, Braga channels the immaterial culture of his homeland through his Oiamo studio, merging artisanal techniques with modern sensibilities.

The suspension itself seems to float, a testament to his “Ancestral Design” methodology, where every curve and detail evokes the rich cultural memory of southern Brazil. On display at the BRAZIL MODERNIST / Pereira & Matis booth, this piece is a radiant exploration of light, heritage, and innovation, a perfect illustration of how PAD London 2025: Art & Design transforms tradition into contemporary storytelling.

Gaetano Pesce – Luigi, O Mi Amate Voi Bookcase @ Pulp Galerie

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, Gaetano Pesce’s Luigi, O Mi Amate Voi bookcase transforms the wall into a canvas, where bright red-orange spheres meet hand-painted wooden panels in a bold orchestration of color and form. Created in 1982 and displayed at Pulp Galerie, the piece embodies Pesce’s experimental ethos, blurring the line between furniture and artwork.

Every visible brushstroke, every irregular finish, celebrates imperfection as a language of expression. More than a functional object, this bookcase is a statement of personality, adaptability, and creativity, a reminder of why PAD London 2025: Art & Design is the ultimate stage for visionary design.

Bethan Laura Wood – Meisen Chair @ Galerie Nilufar

British designer Bethan Laura Wood’s Meisen Chair caught the eye at PAD London 2025: Art & Design with its audacious lime-green velvet upholstery, radiating energy and joy. Part of the Meisen collection, the piece draws inspiration from the intricate anatomy of insects, transforming subtle structural details into ornamental “jewelry” for furniture.

Displayed at Galerie Nilufar, the chair is both playful and meticulously crafted, encapsulating Wood’s passion for color and her mastery in marrying eccentricity with functionality. It’s a piece that doesn’t just sit in a room, it animates it, inviting collectors and design enthusiasts to experience her vibrant, tactile vision firsthand.

Joaquim Tenreiro – Armchair c.1959 @ JCRD Design

At PAD London 2025: Art & Design, JCRD Design brings the warmth and soul of Brazilian modernism to the heart of Mayfair. Among its highlights, the Joaquim Tenreiro Armchair (circa 1959) stands as a timeless symbol of craftsmanship, a masterclass in proportion, natural materiality, and quiet elegance.

The exhibition, curated by Luiz Kessler, celebrates the golden era of mid-century Brazilian design through a lens of authenticity and artistry. This sensibility resonates deeply with our partner brand, Wood Tailors Club, whose pieces like the Spencer Dining Chair and Crockford Armchair in woven rattan, echo the same devotion to handcrafted detail and enduring design. Together, they create a dialogue between past and present, showing that true sophistication is always sustainable, tactile, and alive.

In the end, PAD London 2025: Art & Design reminds us that design is far more than objects on display, it is emotion made tangible, culture in conversation, and imagination given form. Across Berkeley Square, every booth, every crafted curve and thoughtful texture spoke the same universal language: the pursuit of beauty that stirs the soul.

Here, history and innovation didn’t simply coexist; they danced, from the poetic minimalism of contemporary makers to the timeless elegance of 20th-century icons. PAD London 2025 stood as a living proof that design, at its best, connects us not only to spaces but to stories, people, and ideas that transcend time.

So, what will you take from this year’s fair…a spark of curiosity, a deeper appreciation for craftsmanship, or perhaps a renewed sense of wonder? Whatever it is, one thing’s certain: at PAD London 2025: art and design don’t just decorate life, they define it.

MORE FROM MALABAR: