Czech designers set out stall at annual showcase event

The annual Design Supermarket exhibition gets underway at the Kafka House in the centre of Prague on Thursday. Now in its ninth year, the event offers a chance to buy original Christmas presents made by domestic and foreign designers while avoiding crowded shopping malls. Ruth Fraňková has more:

Photo: CTK

The Design Supermarket opened its door to the public at 12 a.m. on Thursday at the Kafka House just round the corner from Prague’s Old Town Square. This year it offers a record number of designers presenting a wide selection of design clothes, jewellery and accessories. There is also a rich accompanying programme, including lectures, exhibitions and parties. The subtitle of this years’ edition of Designer Supermarket is New Design of Czech Christmas or Christmas of Czech design. Darina Zavadilová, who is head of the programme, outlines the idea behind it:

“We would like to present a new and modern way of celebrating Christmas, of being together. Design Supermarket represents a meeting point of the Czech design scene and people who appreciate design. It is located in a building right on the Old Town Square so we wanted to create an alternative programme to the traditional and maybe sometimes a little bit kitschy Christmas celebrations that can be seen in the centre of Prague.

Darina Zavadilová, photo: archive of Darina Zavadilová

“At the same time we don’t support massive production and the craziness surrounding Christmas gifts and we present products by Czech designers with some added value and a story behind each of them.”

Among the highly anticipated guests this year is the young Israeli fashion designer Danit Peleg, who is known for developing her own textiles and experimenting with various technologies. This year she brings her new collection of clothes created with the help of 3D printing.

Other guests include the extravagant fashion duo the Muslin Brothers and jewellery maker Ezekhiel Design. Darina Zavadilová also highlights the first edition of a project called European Design Stories:

“It’s a project that we created in cooperation with the graphic group Okolo. We have been travelling around Europe visiting interesting European designers and making interviews and video-documentaries and taking pictures. We collect the stories of particular designers and their products and put them together.

“The output of the project is an online platform and at the same time we are presenting an exhibition here at Design Supermarket and an accompanying programme with a lecture with guests from Italy. Next year we are going to present the project at the Milan Design Week.”

Photo: CTK

Last year, the organizers of Design Supermarket, along with Dolce Vita magazine, introduced an Award for the event’s best product and after seeing this year’s selection, they decided to award several designers for each separate category. The awards will be announced on Thursday night.

Meanwhile, the sales exhibition at the Kafka House will continue until Sunday evening.