The great spring clean of luxury furnishings
High-end interiors firm Carden Cunietti to sell off 20 years’ worth of treasures
WANT to get your hands on a lamp destined for the home of an A-lister? Ever wondered what a rock star’s rug would look like? Now’s your chance as Carden Cunietti, an interior design firm to the stars, is offloading two decades’ worth of furniture.
Since founders Audrey Carden and Eleanora Cunietti set up their antique furniture shop in west London, they’ve built up quite a collection of spare treasures. Now, as a 12-person consultancy creating interiors for the likes of Robbie Williams and Annie Lennox, they need to catch up on 20 years’ worth of tidying, so they came up with the idea of holding charity sale The Spring Clean.
“When we get furnishings shipped in, some things arrive damaged, in the wrong colour, or we’ve made a mistake in the order somewhere,” says Carden. We’ve accumulated so much of this stuff over 20 years, and we just keep thinking we’ll use it some day. The truth is, we don’t.”
A lot of items are bespoke one-offs that simply didn’t make the final cut, meaning they’re sitting in perfect condition in the warehouse.
“We’ve got one rug that’s 17ft by 14ft that we had custom-made for this huge house. Most people don’t have space to put that in their house, so it’s just sitting in storage, looking brand new. We thought, we couldn’t be the only ones that have all this stuff. So we called everyone we knew and got them involved, too.”
Carden and Cunietti now have a committee of nine high-end designers behind The Spring Clean, all donating furniture that’s been lying in storage. Proceeds will go to the Kids Company, which provides support to vulnerable young people in inner cities.
Expect hundreds of items from lamps, sofas, cushions, curtains, artworks, fabrics, bespoke lighting, photography and beds. “Where a lampshade might have been £300, we’re going to be selling them for £30. We’re pricing to sell, really,” says Carden.
The Spring Clean takes place at Londonewcastle Project Space, 28 Redchurch Street, Shoreditch on Friday 30 May and Saturday 31 May from 10.30am to 6.30pm.