PARIS HAS fashion and mucky pavements. New York has art and chutzpah. London has design — a whole festival of it.

This year’s London Design Festival, which opened yesterday, is the biggest yet and promises to be the best. Until the end of the month the capital will be the stage for more than 170 events covering art, architecture and design.

Products range from experimental to commercial and mix affordable with aspirational. Unlike London Fashion Week, which begins this weekend, the design festival is open to all. It is not just a Zone 1 phenomenon.

100% Design remains the biggest single event. More than 450 exhibitors jam themselves into Earls Court and vie for your attentions. It takes a whole day to get round it all, so bring water to drink and cash to splash.

Highlights include up-to-the-minute wallpaper patterns from Cole & Son, sleek sofas from SCP and fresh bathrooms from Villeroy & Boch. Peruse stands devoted to designers from Spain, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada before concluding that Britain is best. After all that, you will find it hard to care about anything but your feet.

At the same time, on the other side of town, a new event for new talent is being launched: 100% East at the Truman Brewery, Whitechapel. “We’re featuring experimental designs and prototypes,” Jimmy MacDonald, its events director, says. As the man who curates the annual Undu Graduates show, MacDonald knows all about new and shiny. “This won’t be aisle after aisle of £3,000 sofas; it’s stuff you can’t find anywhere else. Anyone can come. There are products under £100 or you can commission a piece.”

But why East London? “Young designer-makers can’t really afford to live and work anywhere else. So they’ve made the East their home and inspiration,” he says.

Typical of 100% East is the Hackney Shelf. Designed by Hackneyite Ryan Frank, it is made of wood randomly spray-painted by local graffiti artists. Each piece is a one-off, which explains the £1,500 price tag. Frank has also created a coffee table covered in the muddy footprints of commuting locals. “East London doesn’t just influence me, it is my work,” he says.

Next door to 100% East, eco-design is being dragged out of the worthy doldrums. The exhibition known as (RE)design takes a stylish stand against our disposable culture. “We’re showing over 100 products and each one is friendly to consumers, society and the environment,” Sarah Johnson, design’s director, says. Hemp there may be, but hippies there are not.

Eco Boudoir has created a luxuriously strokeable rabbit-skin rug. Woven by a community in Hungary, it uses byproducts of the meat industry. It can be made to any shape and costs £280 a square metre. Tommy Allen rescued an abandoned bath from the streets of London. A one-off, his Bath armchair costs £750. You will never get out of it.

People Will Always Need Plates have given new life to survivors of once-cherished dinner services. Their Me Old China cake stands cost £25-£30. Prices at the design exhibition range from £3.50 to £2,200.

This year, for the first time, all the big shops are also getting in on the action at the design festival. Liberty is showing the winners from the Elle Decoration Great British Design Awards. It is also flaunting a full range of furniture from Established & Sons, featuring designs from Zaha Hadid, Barber Osgerby and Future Systems.

The Conran Shop is launching an exclusive Southern African collection. The ceramics, including tall, chimney-shaped ceramic vessels by Louise Gelderblom, are especially interesting.

Selfridges in Oxford Street is bravely allowing Tom Dixon to place an injection-moulding machine in store. Shoppers can watch the creation of a plastic product — or look nervously away while it all goes wrong.

Heal’s has been raking through its archives and collaborating with the Royal College of Art. The results are shown throughout September in Heal’s Discovers. Prices start at £5 for a side-plate by Vanessa Tothill and go up to £2,000 for a ceramic wall installation by Kuldeep Malhi.

Those are just the highlights. There are lectures, exhibitions and smaller guerrilla-style events all over London. The hub is the Festival Information Centre at the Thistle Trafalgar Square hotel, where Tom Dixon is creating an installation called Blue Rubber Bands. Here you can buy tickets and find out exactly how to get to East London.

Whatever your budget, whatever your taste, there is something for you at the London Design Festival. If you do not go, your home will never forgive you.

Reader offer

READERS who call the 100% Design ticket hotline on 0870 1612126 and quote “Bricks” will receive day tickets (valid for Sunday, September 25, only) at £8 rather than £15. The ticket grants access to all 100% shows — 100% Design, 100% East and 100% Detail

HIGHLIGHTS: (RE)design, September 21-25, Dray Walk, Old Truman Brewery, Whitechapel, free entry. www.redesigndesign.org

100% East, September 25, Old Truman Brewery, www.100percenteast.co.uk

100% Design, September 25, Earls Court, www.100percentdesign.co.uk

The Seven Ages of Design, September 19, a panel of experts discuss design through the ages. Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, Kensington, 020-7942 2211, www.vam.ac.uk

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