The transition between August and September has given me whiplash this year. The weather has shifted almost overnight; the streets are busy with kids back to school; and I've received more emails about Christmas in the past week than anyone should have to get at this time of year. However, with the summer lull over, my calendar has started to fill up with exciting events for the season ahead, and good things lie ahead.
The Zeitgeist Edit, if you haven't landed on one of these monthly reports before, is basically a distillation of the things coming up in the schedule, the conversations we have in the Livingetc office both in meetings and around the proverbial water cooler, and my own passions in the world of design and culture that are all leading the direction of what we'll be writing about for the month ahead.
September is probably the buzziest month of the year for new launches, events, and predicting the big moments in interior design for 2026, so there's plenty on the docket for this edition.
↑ Going Up — Brand Imports
This selection of cool, sculptural furniture designs has me excited about UK brand launches like Castlery's.
Why, I ask myself, has the UK suddenly become such a prospect for brands that have, traditionally, only existed on US soil?
It might have started back in 2023, with RH (formerly known as Restoration Hardware) opening its epic British outpost at Aynho Park, but this autumn, things are kicking up a gear. Pottery Barn is launching its UK website in mid-September, bringing this near-cultural American institution to homes on this side of the pond, while I'm perhaps even more excited for Castlery (technically, a Singaporean brand, but one that's got a major foothold in the States), which I'm attending the launch for this month.
A lot of its designs are pretty classic takes on a mid-century-esque style of furniture, but there are some bolder, more interesting finds among the collection, such as the Solari sofa, pictured above, that give me high hopes of somewhere new I'll actually want to shop.
↑ Going Up — Queer Art
I've been thinking a lot about the role of queer art in the homes of LGBTQIA+ identifying people recently, so much so that I've been interviewing some of my favorite curators of it for a feature this month.
The idea is spurred on by the work of curator Davy Pittoors, founder of London-based art fair Queeriosities, which is returning to the capital for another year between September 26th and 29th at Peckham's Copeland Gallery. The UK's largest queer art and makers fair, it's the place to discover new and emerging LGBTQIA+ artists, and alongside 60+ vendors, features a group exhibition We Come to This Place for Magic, showcasing new work from queer artists.
If it's something you're interested in learning more about, I've got another date for your diary this month. Queer Bloomsbury runs at Charleston House on September 13th and 14th, a festival with a series of events and exhibitions, including a chance to see and learn more about the erotic drawings of Scottish artist Duncan Grant, a member of the queer circle of artists in the Bloomsbury Group.
↑ Going Up — Morris & Co
The owners of William Morris archive uncovered as many as 50 unfinished designs.
We were having a conversation in the office about the abundance of Morris & Co collaborations we've seen recently, all over the High Street and beyond, when Livingetc's content director Lucy Searle reminded me: "William Morris was all about making design accessible to the people." I sometimes forget that the man behind this pervasive, design-classic wallpaper and fabric brand is also the same source of that distinctly anti-capitalist Romantic poetry I read at university.
So, no, I'll not begrudge a good Morris & Co collection any time soon, and even a few new ones are launching this month, not all of which I can tell you about right now. Perhaps more exciting, though, is the addition of 26 new designs to the brand's archive. 'New' might feel like the wrong word — in fact, the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens in California, which owns the William Morris archive, found some 50 started but unfinished designs by Morris and his creative director John Dearle, and invited the current Morris & Co design team to finish them.
The result? 26 new authentic William Morris designs in the Morris & Co. library called The Unfinished Works collection.
↑ Going Up — Christmas Shops
Like clockwork, the 1st of September signals enough of an end to summer that brands are brave enough to launch their Christmas shops — in fact, Liberty opened its infamous 'fourth floor' over a week ago now.
And, you can't talk about zeitgeist at this time of year without mentioning the novelty bauble. Is there any better signifier of what's resonating in culture in any given year than what icons make it onto our Christmas trees?
While I've no doubt the golden goose of baubles this year will be whoever scrambles to make a Labubu ornament first, some of my favorites might be from Studio Thie, pictured above. My picks for 2025? Takeout matcha, trendy middle-class olives, and orange wine might reflect my interests most right now, but there is an endless supply of niche cultural references to pull from.
↓ Going Down — The Hands-On Approach
At the Tillingham winery in East Sussex, you'll find a 'low intervention' approach to wine.
Over the summer, I fell into the world of 'natural wines' while holidaying in Lisbon. Thanks to Portugal's burgeoning natural wine scene, there seemed to be a wine bar specializing in them on every street corner in the city.
On return to home soil, I started my research, discovering that the preferred term over here is a 'low intervention' as the UK doesn't lend itself so well to the true definition of natural — before buying a trio of wines from East Sussex-based winery Tillingham from DELLI, which caught my eye for the brand's stylish, minimalist branding.
"The term low intervention refers to the method of producing wines by doing as little as possible along the way to get from grape to finished, bottled wine," Tierney Beames, Tillingham's wine manager, explained to me. "Broadly, this would encompass fermenting with wild, ambient yeasts, making no additions to, or removing anything from the juice or fermenting must, minimising sulphur additions, and bottling the wine without fining or filtration."
"Making high-quality wine in this way requires perfect conditions, which may not always be possible, which is why the term low intervention differs from ‘natural wine’. It takes a pragmatic approach, where the goal is always to do as little as possible, but if an allowance has to be made for the sake of the quality of the wine, some of those interventions might take place, on a case-by-case basis."
If you're up for adding low intervention to your home bar's wine repertoire in a more meaningful way, Tillingham is launching a 'low intervention wine club' at the end of September.
↓ Going Down — Hangovers
Having said that, I might not have many people left to enjoy a bottle with if the trend towards 'social wellness' is anything to go by. Yes, nights spent at cocktail bars with friends are being traded in more and more for late-night run clubs, and I've also heard tales in the office of the 'wellness morning' as a replacement for the traditional birthday party.
And it's not just hearsay. You see the trend toward social wellness in the rise of the community sauna and the 'bathing club' — take the Lore Bathing Club, just opened in New York's NoHo, as one such example. It's a design-led space, developed by Ilse Crawford of Studioilse and Ringo Studio, that doesn't see itself as a luxury spa, but rather a 'healthy alternative to the coffee shop, bar, or boutique fitness studio.'
There's precedent at some of the best UK spas, too. Just check out London's Arc for a similar mix of design and community wellness.
↓ Going Down — Sofas That Don't Fit Through the Front Door
The launch of this collaboration between Snøhetta and MDFItalia at Aram is part of this year's London Design Festival calendar.
This month, I'm sofa shopping while also helping compile our master guide to where to buy a couch that includes interviews and testing with all the best brands in the UK. I've got my fingers crossed that I'm going to find the perfect one for my own living room in the process.
However, there's one lesson I've learned with my Victorian home's narrow entryway, and that is that it has got to be modular — the last non-sectional sofa I bought had to be carried through an alleyway and through the kitchen window.
The versatility of the modular sofa is something I'm a big believer in, and I'm not the only one. For London Design Festival this year, London furniture shop Aram is hosting the panel talk Flexible Futures: A New Paradigm in Sofa Design to celebrate the launch of modular seating concept Array, a collaboration between design and architecture studio Snøhetta and furniture brand MDFItalia, and examine the role modular sofas have in the future of home design.
So, those are the talking points for this month, but if you feel like you missed your design fix in August, take some time to check in on the biggest launches in interiors for the previous month with our ICYMI feature.
