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It was the 1950s, or thereabouts. Sir Terence Conran was in Sweden. With a girl. And Our Tel found himself lying under a strange cover that was a bit like an eiderdown but with no sheets or blankets between him and it. He inquired casually what it was and was informed that it was a

Philippe Starck was having lunch on the Amalfi coast. As he ordered a plate of calamari he was pondering his latest commission from the Italian design house Alessi. The company, responsible for so many iconic designs over the years, had requested a tray and Starck needed to work out how to bring his unique talents

  Such is the iconic status of the Barcelona chair that it has its own page in the Barcelona Yellow Pages. Not only that but it is one of the oldest modern classics still around. It was designed in 1929 for the Spanish Royal Family by the German designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Along

It seems hard to remember a time when the cafetiere was an object of luxury. For Britons, used to a mug of instant coffee, the glass pot and its plunger which most of us only saw in cafes with pretensions to grandeur, was not an object that we would assume to own at home. But

  Who hasn't stared fascinated at its gently blobulous movements up and down the glass. At the waxing and waning of the shapes as they rise until it seems they must burst before floating gently back down again. Ah, the lava lamp - adored by students, small children and nostalgia lovers everywhere. Symbolic of the