What happens when we stop simply traveling to see design and start creating opportunities to understand the people, businesses and ideas behind it?
This October in London, Designhounds will introduce Perspectives, a new international exchange designed to build meaningful working relationships between established design professionals, brands, makers and industry leaders across markets.
The idea is simple: Meet in person. Continue the conversation. Meet again. Over 6 months. Across the pond.
From design travel to design thought leadership exchange
For years, Designhounds has brought design professionals into markets around the world. We have toured factories, met makers, attended international design fairs and stepped inside places most visitors never get to see.
Perspectives builds on that experience, but changes the model.
Rather than a trip that begins when everyone arrives and ends when everyone flies home, Perspectives creates a longer arc of connection. Participants meet in one market, continue through a series of virtual conversations, workshops and introductions, and ultimately reconnect in another.
The goal isn’t simply exposure. It’s exchange:
- How does a designer in London approach a project differently from a designer in New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta?
- How do brands enter and work within different markets?
- Where are designers finding materials, makers and manufacturing resources that their counterparts elsewhere may never encounter?
- What challenges are shared across borders, and what can we learn from the different ways we solve them?
- And perhaps most importantly: what happens when the people having those conversations actually get to know one another?
A connected international design community
Perspectives is being developed as an ongoing international program, with exchanges connecting the United States with design communities in the UK, Germany, Denmark and that’s just in 2027.
Each edition will be shaped by its market rather than following a traditional tour format.
There may be studio visits, workshops, private dinners, factory visits, conversations with craftspeople, business discussions, cultural experiences and time around a table. The physical experiences become the starting point for relationships that continue digitally long after everyone has gone home.
For participating brands, it also creates something increasingly difficult to achieve through traditional marketing: sustained conversation with design professionals. And for participating designers it creates the same: continued, meaningful dialog with manufacturers, makers, media and peers.
- Not a single presentation.
- Not a fleeting introduction at a trade show.
- A relationship built over time.
First stop: London
We couldn’t think of a better place to begin because it happens to be the 15th anniversary of our Designhounds Tours which began in September 2011 in London.
Our one week program, October 6-13, in the city that our founder Veronika calls her home away from home, will see us visiting talented makers and beautiful showrooms including Balineum Tile, Cox London, Hendel + Hendel, Bonadea, Tom Faulkner, Fermoie, Bertioli, IVO Textiles accompanied by the amazing Jules Haines from Haines Collection. We will, of course, also enjoy a private tour of Design Centre Chelsea Harbor hosted by our friends at Interiors Academy and there will be workshops with printmaker Alex Booker and with the incredibly talented Mary-Havana Little, a real life Freeman of the Guild of Plasterers. And no visit to London is complete without a Chelsea walking tour, led by Veronika herself from the famous Brompton cemetery to Chelsea Physics Garden. Oh, we should add a private palace visit but shhhh our group doesn’t know about that one just yet – thank you Soho Lighting for making that happen.
The week will culminate in conversations at Decorex and a private gathering bringing our UK and US communities together.
Very special thank you to our friend and much admired interiors guru and sublime organizer of creative retreats in her home in Italy, Kate Watson-Smyth at Mad About The House who was so helpful with introductions to favorite brands and makers and a big thank you to Alex Dauly and Grant Pierrus at Aeven Collective for inviting us to join their panel at Decorex and talk all things US/UK design.
But that isn’t the end of the program. It’s the beginning.
Next up – 4 months of Virtual Exchanges
Following London, participants on both sides of the Atlantic will reconnect through a series of virtual Perspectives sessions exploring design, business, sourcing and the realities of working in our respective markets.
November 12, 2026
HOW WE DESIGN
Taste, Influence & the Making of a Point of View
January 14, 2027
HOW WE WORK
The Business of Being a Designer
February 25, 2027
HOW WE SPECIFY
Products, Materials & the Designer–Manufacturer Relationship
March 25, 2027
WHERE DESIGN IS GOING
The Changing Client, Home & Profession
And then we meet again – Stateside
Then, in spring 2027, we’ll bring the conversation together again at April’s High Point market with a subsidized tour for UK designers that are tailored to brands who are interested in or already trading in the UK.
That is Perspectives – Because the industry doesn’t need more noise!
“We have more access to imagery, products and information than at any point in the history of design, but access isn’t the same thing as connection. I created Perspectives because I believe our industry becomes stronger when we make the world a little smaller: when we introduce people who should know one another, share knowledge and sources across borders, expose designers to ideas they might never otherwise encounter, and give brands the opportunity to listen as much as they present. Most importantly, I want to create relationships that don’t disappear when the event is over. We’re beginning in London this October, but the idea behind Perspectives is much bigger than any one city or country. This is about building an international design community that keeps talking, learning and working together long after we’ve all gone home.” Veronika Miller
Founder, Designhounds
