Clerkenwell Design Week doesn’t come to you. You go to it. And this year, the Kallums Bathrooms team did exactly that.
For three days, the streets of EC1 become a dense, multi-venue design festival for architects, interior designers, and industry professionals and the 2026 edition marked its 15th anniversary, making it the biggest and most ambitious yet. We were there from 19 to 21 May, moving between showrooms, talking to the brands we know and love and picking up on the conversations that shape luxury bathroom design months before they reach the wider market.
Here’s what stood out.
Dornbracht revealed a new design series for the bathroom alongside a landmark collaboration with Jung, bringing coordinated finishes across fittings and switches – a direct response to designers’ growing desire to create harmonious interiors across the entire home. Their joint finish portfolio sits in perfect harmony across fittings and switches, under the motto “Signature Design. Crafted in Finishes.”
For our clients specifying whole-home projects, this matters. The days of brassware and hardware existing in separate conversations are over. Dornbracht and Jung have made the case for designing them together and the result is exceptional.
“What struck us across every showroom wasn’t one single direction, but a shared commitment – that every element in a bathroom should feel intentional. That thread ran through everything we saw, from the first showroom to the last.”
Gessi reminded us why refined Italian craftsmanship continues to set the standard in luxury brassware. Their latest collections balance sculptural confidence with genuine restraint – pieces that read as art in a showroom and disappear beautifully into a finished bathroom. If your brief is timeless rather than trend-led, Gessi belongs in the conversation.
The audience at Clerkenwell isn’t the general public – it’s the architects and interior designers specifying luxury projects months, sometimes years, ahead. Which means the products and finishes that generate excitement at CDW in May are the ones clients start asking for by Christmas.
When you visit Kallums Bathrooms in Putney or Guildford, you are not speaking to a showroom team that reads about trends online. You are speaking to people who were in the room – who saw these collections in person, spoke directly to the designers behind them, and can tell you exactly where they work and where they don’t.
That’s the difference between buying a bathroom and designing one.
Visit us in Putney or Guildford. We’d love to show you what we brought back.
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