The seasonal page turns and The Decorative Fair returns to Battersea Park for its Autumn edition from Tuesday 3 to Sunday 8 October 2023. With 135 expert dealers exhibiting, the highly anticipated event will offer inspiration for the design trade, homemakers and collectors alike.

The exhibitors have an eye for the most exciting and unusual objects and works of art, decorative antiques and 20th century design and understand what is currently in vogue. This means the fair is a reliable in real life destination for the interiors community who make a beeline to Battersea three times a year to source for their projects, and pick up the best examples of antiques and 20th century design on the market today - for interiors and exteriors - choosing from the widest range imaginable. Personal accessories are also part of the mix: fine jewellery, vintage watches and couture. A visit to the Decorative Fair at Battersea can be compared to turning the pages of a leading antiques and design magazine, with inspiration and trend directions on every stand.

Go Rococo: A special foyer display featuring items for sale from exhibitors is an anticipatory appetizer on arrival at the Fair. This October it goes Rococo, showcasing designs and works of art in this light-hearted, ornate form of decoration that originated in early 1700s France. Anti-classical in style, rococo features exuberant swirling scrolls and elaborate usually asymmetrical naturalistic outlines – amorphous, organic, shell-like shapes, referred to as ‘rocaille’ in France - hence the term Rococo.

Continental Europe went wild for rococo in architecture and interiors – at Versailles, in Venetian palazzos, Sanssouci at Potsdam, Charlottenberg in Berlin, at castles in Austria and Scandinavia. In England, rococo was expressed through the decorative arts and applied ornamentation: Claydon House, Buckinghamshire is a splendid example. Chippendale combined it with chinoiserie and gothick elements creating a very British iteration. Rococo has had revivals: in the early 19th century, and again in the late 19th and early 20th century when it was often termed Louis Quinze style. Recently it’s been on view in TV series like Marie Antoinette and Queen Charlotte, and last year The Wallace Collection’s Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts demonstrated the animator’s interest in, as well as the fun of rococo design. Now, rococo is reappearing in this season’s wallpaper and fabric launches – so the Fair celebrates this playful and endearing style.

The Fair will host a number of brilliant new exhibitors this Autumn:

• Spitalfields House (London): Country house grandeur on a townhouse scale: an erudite collection of C18th and C19th English and continental furniture and works of art

• The Swedish Rug Company (London): Scandinavian folk art rugs, flatweave runners and larger rugs dating from the 1900's to the 1970's

• Schmid McDonagh (London): Dealers in C20th and C21st objects, furniture, jewellery, art, design and books

• King & Country (London): Specialist in antique Louis Vuitton luggage & luxury travel accessories, unusual decorative items & rare collectables for the study, games room & bar

• Flora Black (London): Decorative selection of vintage and antique vases, ornament and art

• Han Collection, Museum Street, London: exceptional Korean contemporary art & antiques

• Lawrence Prentice Art & Antiques, Old Spitalfields Market and The Old Cinema Chiswick: British painting and sculpture of the 1950s to 70s; folk art and studio ceramics

These join the many regular participants who show at all three Fairs each year, plus some well-loved dealers making a return,including Martin D Johnson Antiques and Fontaine Decorative, bringing exhibitor numbers to 135 across the ground floor.

Tribal Art London: Arriving at Battersea up on the mezzanine for the first time is Tribal Art London, the long-established and only premier UK event for collectors and admirers of original tribal and ethnographic art and artefacts. Moving from their previous home in The Mall, Tribal Art London adds a unique dimension to the offering at Evolution London during The Decorative Fair.

Bone Idyll: A new all-day eatery will be delivered by Bone Idyll, an energetic business making waves in South West London as exciting restaurateurs and event caterers. At the bar, discover the company’s range of locally distilled gins and beer, plus for a touch of fun, they’ll be serving the downstairs coffee area from a vintage French truck.

The Fair opens at 12:00 on Tuesday 3 October and from 11:00 daily from Wednesday 4 to Sunday 8 October. Opening day tickets cost £20, and £10 thereafter, and can be purchased online at www.decorativefair.com or at the door on arrival. There is Free Admission from 16:00 daily.

Admission: £20 p/p on opening day and £10 p/p on subsequent days; Free entry daily from 4pm.

For tickets and more information about the fair visit the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair