"People don't see the UK as being very sexy" says Brompton Design District curator Alex Tieghi-Walker

London has undeservedly fallen off the radar for the international design community, gallerist Alex Tieghi-Walker tells Dezeen in this interview ahead of London Design Festival, where he is curating one of the main design districts.

The Welshman behind buzzy New York design gallery Tiwa Select is returning to the UK to take the mantle of Brompton Design District curator for next week's festival – a role previously held by Jane Withers for 18 consecutive years.

He brings with him something of an outsider's perspective, having moved to the US in 2016 after cutting his teeth in London's publishing scene, first at Wallpaper* and later at Dazed.

This is reflected in his programme, which brings together international voices including American designer Tione Trice and Tbilisi's Rooms Studio, alongside rising London stars like Charlotte Taylor and Andu Masebo.

The hope is to re-establish the British capital as a key destination in the annual design calendar, which has been dominated by Milan, Copenhagen and Paris in recent years.

"People don't necessarily see the UK as being very sexy," Tieghi-Walker joked.

"So I'm looking forward to more international communities seeing what's going on in the Brompton Design District through the different creators that we've pulled in and making them a little bit more intrigued about what London has to offer, design-wise, after this September."

"I would love to hear my peers in New York be like 'we're going to the London Design Festival this year' in the same way that they do with Salone," he told Dezeen.

Tieghi-Walker argues that London's recent struggles to assert itself as a global design capital are at least partly down to Brexit, which came into effect shortly before the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

The previous year, in 2019, London Design Festival (LDF) celebrated a record 600,000 visitors from more than 75 countries. But since then, attendance has shrunk to just 506,000 people in 2024.

The festival also lost its key trade fairs, with Design Junction and the London Design Fair shut down entirely, while the Decorex interior design show moved to October.

"With Brexit, the UK lost a lot of creative energy," Tieghi-Walker said. "It was amazing to live in my twenties in a city that was so open, where we had students, designers and artists from all over Europe flocking to live in the UK."

"Post-Brexit, you sort of see the creativity shifting to other cities," he added. "And it's like, I love that Paris is having its moment right now, but as someone from the UK, it breaks my heart."

"I think London has to put in a lot of work to maintain that voice."

Tieghi-Walker's adoptive home of New York is struggling with many of the same issues. The city's design week has historically failed to draw huge international crowds – a fact that, according to Tieghi-Walker, has recently been exacerbated by president Donald Trump's aggressive trade policies.

"New York design week somehow also falls under the radar internationally, which I think is a real shame," Tieghi-Walker explained. "New York has all the makings to really be on the map, but the design week feels very internal, in a way."

"And we've made it challenging to work properly at the moment," he continued. "As a gallerist living in New York City, it's difficult for me to show artists who aren't based in America because we've elected a freaky government that has made shipping harder and added tariffs and all sorts of things."

Like New York, London remains one of the most racially and ethnically diverse cities in the world, which Tieghi-Walker suggested the local design scene can capitalise on when rebuilding its international appeal.

"It's a very exciting, dynamic city; it's incredibly multicultural; it's incredibly celebratory of different types of people," he explained. "And I think the London Design Festival can use that to its advantage in a way that maybe Milan doesn't."

"Milan does feel very Italian in its presentation of design, whereas London is much more of a global city, and I think it has the opportunity to tell a much more global story about design."

With this in mind, Tieghi-Walker set an overall theme for this year's Brompton Design District under the title A Softer World, championing a less rigid, more craft-led approach to design.

He handed over the curation of the district's various exhibitions to designers from different backgrounds, allowing them to spotlight younger, emerging talents from within their communities.

Taylor, for example, is bringing together 30 female designers for a group show set in a single bedroom, while Trice has teamed up with London fashion designer Ronan McKenzie to spotlight projects from the African diaspora in an old storefront.

"I was very excited when I was invited to curate, knowing that Brompton has spaces available that you can hand over to curators and really give them space to exhibit in a way that they might not be able to otherwise," Tieghi-Walker explained.

"I don't want this to be necessarily the same voices that Londoners are hearing over and over again. I want visitors to the Brompton Design District to be exposed to as many stories, as many perspectives as they can."

Many of this year's shows are set within "non-traditional" spaces across the district, including a former bank, Brompton Cemetery Chapel and two historic mixed-use buildings on Thurloe Place from the early 20th century.

"The design world can be so insular; I really wanted to expand it," Tieghi-Walker said. "In the past, I feel with events I've been to at LDF or during New York design week, they're just taking place in galleries, which is sort of where you're seeing those works anyway."

"I love Open House weekend in London, because you get to see spaces you might not normally see, and I'm hoping to sort of merge that with design during Brompton Design District," he added.

"That was something I really wanted to push with the Brompton Design District: giving people more of a reason than simply design to engage."

As a self-taught gallerist, Tieghi-Walker often spotlights similarly autodidactic makers who have little regard for the boundaries between design and craft – most recently premiering a series of hand-painted lights by British designer Faye Toogood via Tiwa Select.

This same disregard for boundaries also extends to his curation of the Brompton Design District, where Norwich-based OTZI Studio is presenting furniture made from regenerative British pasture leather and Purdy Hicks Gallery is showing 19th-century photographs by PH Emerson that document agrarian life in east England.

"I didn't want this to necessarily be design, design, design," Tieghi-Walker said. "I wanted to factor in the history of design and how we got to where we are, which was through craft, and to celebrate the more handmade elements of design."

"There's always going to be snobbishness within creative communities, like when photography burst onto the scene and the art world was like: 'photography isn't art; it shouldn't be shown in the same spaces'," he added.

"But why limit design to sleek chairs and light fixtures? I love the blurriness."

The London Design Festival takes place from 13 to 21 September 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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