Top picks for London Craft Week 2025: Future Icons Selects.

Future Icons Selects is back at London Craft Week this week, 15-18 May 2025.

After two successful years at the Bargehouse on the city's South Bank, the show is moving to a new venue in the heart of Shoreditch—83 Rivington Street.

Spanning an impressive 9,000 square feet, the new space will showcase the work of over 50 talented artisans across a wide range of disciplines—from ceramics and textiles to metalwork and fine art.

The exhibition will take over three stunning industrial arches and the outdoor terrace garden will be transformed into a lively social hub, offering curated food and beverage experiences that complement the creative atmosphere.

Set to be the largest gathering of craft makers at London Craft Week 2025, Future Icons Selects stays true to its mission of supporting and celebrating a diverse range of artisans. The event provides a unique platform for both local and international craft makers to showcase their work and, with an emphasis on accessibility, it offers an affordable opportunity for artisans to participate in one of the leading craft and design showcases, all within a thoughtfully curated, large-scale exhibition.

This year's selection includes many artisans who have never shown in London before - a chance for interior designers and private collectors to 'discover' and source projects and collections before they are snapped up by global museums and galleries.

Key highlights include:

Endangered Crafts

The Marchmont Workshop, one of the last bastions of rush-seated chair making, will debut its first-ever lounge chair—crafted using traditional furniture techniques and sustainably harvested local materials.

Award-winning gemstone artist Sanni Falkenberg, a specialist in the rare art of lapidary—the skilful cutting, shaping, and polishing of stones—will present three sculptures, each reflecting the meticulous craftsmanship of this fading art form. Falkenberg is one of only two artisans in the UK creating large-scale lapidary works.

Epona Smith, renowned for her expertise in traditional hand-push engraving—an art officially listed on the Heritage Crafts Endangered Red List—has recently been named a finalist for the Heritage Crafts Award in the Precious Metal of the Year category. A former master engraver at Tiffany & Co., and recipient of a prestigious Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) scholarship, Smith will showcase a collection of handcrafted silver objects, featuring intricate Florentine engraving.

Willow Bloomfield, a dedicated coppersmith, works almost exclusively with recycled copper sourced from local scrapyards. Coppersmithing, now classified as a critically endangered craft, is brought to life in Bloomfield’s work, highlighting the beauty and sustainability of this ancient metalworking tradition.

Blending artistic expression with functional design

Catalin Filip will showcase his sculptural ceramic lights, objects, and installations inspired by the natural response of raw clay under the force of gravity. By bending, pulling, and stretching the material, he captures its fluidity and preserves the shapes in a stone-like finish.

Kira Phoenix K’inan is a glass maker who will present her PLAY series, a body of work that explores how colour in glass can create emotion in the viewer in a similar way that music evokes emotion. Selfish Customs is a dynamic design studio specialising in playful, tactile furniture that combines vibrant colours with bold, structural forms to create striking spatial statements.

Their recent work was featured in the You Can Sit With Us Too exhibition, curated by 2LG Studio at the Haricot Gallery. For Future Icons Selects, Selfish Customs will unveil an innovative new seating collection crafted from eco-resin and intricately woven river rush.

The interplay between the human body, nature and the environment

Emily Gibbard will present a series of biomorphic ceramic totems, standing up to 180cm tall and 60x60cm wide. Gibbard’s work delves into themes of body perception, identity, and sexuality, drawing inspiration from her advocacy for female empowerment, studies of prehistoric sculpture, and personal experiences with body discovery. Rooted in traditional pottery, her practice blurs the line between functional craft and expressive, sculptural art.

Gaby Mlynarczyk’s ceramics investigate the collision of humanity and nature, using unconventional materials to highlight environmental concerns. Her assemblages combine porcelain and parian clays with marine-based bioplastics, Egyptian paste, and lava rock. Inspired by the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, her work envisions how marine ecosystems might evolve alongside the growing presence of ocean plastics, paralleling the way microplastics are becoming embedded in human life.

Mlynarczyk’s ceramics are haunting reflections on environmental degradation and adaptation, merging beauty with urgent commentary.

Louisa Pacifico, founder of Future Icons Selects, comments: “After two fabulous years at the Bargehouse in Oxo Tower Wharf, we are delighted to showcase our selected artisans in the heart of fashionable Shoreditch - an area renowned for setting trends. With limited space, we will deliver a concise showcase of 50+ diverse makers in an exciting new format - think luxury retail! All of our artisans will be present to meet you and discuss their collections, some of whom will be demonstrating their craft for visitors to get a behind-the-scenes look at their methods.”

Head to 83 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3AY from 15-18 May, 12pm - 6pm. Discover more here.