I arrived in Copenhagen with an intricate colour-coded Google map on my phone and a neatly highlighted list of things I thought I wanted to see.
Brands I admired and trusted to do something beautiful. But beneath all that preparation was a quieter hope: to be surprised. To stumble upon something that felt new; not in the trend sense, but in the soul sense.
This year’s 3daysofdesign theme—Keep it Real—felt like an open-ended question. A gentle dare to notice what’s sincere in a space, and what’s simply well-staged. It asked something of you—not just to look, but to feel.
I. feeling, not framing
I keep returning to two installations that captured this spirit not through spectacle, but through softness. Unassuming in tone, yet deeply resonant.
At Frama’s Structures of Living, a grid of modular steel frames created a flexible skeleton for everyday rituals—cooking, reading, resting—each function held within its own frame, soft but defined. There was an architectural clarity to it, cerebral and composed. It was an early standout moment of 3daysofdesign, not for its grandeur, but for its grace.
Two doors down, their styled studio embraced a relaxed, effortless type of styling that felt uncannily like someone had just stepped out moments before, leaving behind the subtle trace of a life. Open books. A discarded coffee cup. A bed left unmade in the most deliberate of ways. This is the kind of styling I’m always drawn to, where the inhabitant is invisible, but somehow still present.
Similarly, at Noura Residency, Home from Home by Charlotte Taylor felt like walking into the afterglow of real life. Not styled. Not staged. Simply lived-in. Light drifted through the space like a slow thought. Objects had been used: folded, handled, eaten from. Brands like Tekla, Aesop and Service Projects blended into a domestic landscape shaped by instinct and memory, not marketing.
In both spaces, the mood mattered more than the message. They weren’t offering templates or trends. They were offering a way of being. Both spaces reminded me there’s a difference between visiting a room and being invited into a world. When that invitation is genuine, something in your body softens. You stop scanning for the perfect image and start listening for mood, resonance and the echo of a life lived well.
Isn’t that what we’re all quietly craving? Not the perfect image, but the feeling that lingers. And that’s what sets 3daysofdesign apart; it allows space for those feelings to emerge.
What struck me most was that these presentations weren’t outliers. Across the city, more and more spaces seemed to be moving in this direction, away from static product presentation and toward something softer, more immersive. Rooms weren’t just styled, they were composed; less about aesthetics arranged for the camera, more about atmospheres shaped to be lived in.
Throughout the week, the phrase emotional sustainability kept coming back to me. What makes a space linger in the mind, or in the skin? What kind of design do we carry home with us, not in shopping bags, but in the way we move through our own rooms afterwards? It’s a question I found myself asking in nearly every venue across 3daysofdesign.
These spaces offered no answers, only resonance. A language of tactility and tone. There was no manifesto, no demand for attention. Just a quiet invitation: to slow down, to notice, to feel. A reminder that a space doesn’t need to speak loudly to leave a mark. Sometimes it only needs to breathe, to make space for your own meaning to settle in.
II. design as content (and what gets lost)
There’s no denying that design today lives in tension with its own image. Even at its most thoughtful, it often risks becoming content: flattened, styled and optimised for the scroll.
That tension was present at 3daysofdesign too. But in Copenhagen, the relationship between form and frame feels softer, as the city itself offers a kind of natural styling: a stage of century-old townhouses, light-filled studios and elegant former warehouses that elevate rather than contrive.
Unlike the cavernous, fluorescent-lit halls of Milan or the gloomy crypts of Clerkenwell Design Festival, Copenhagen gives design room to breathe. This year, the sun turned up for most of the fair, streaming through high windows and slipping across oak floors. It made everything more photogenic, yes. But more than that, it made things feel true. The beauty felt earned, not staged.
Still, the pull of the image was everywhere. I saw it in myself, too; how easily I reached for my camera when the light hit just right. How certain spaces seemed to whisper this will look good on Instagram. Some installations felt designed precisely with that whisper in mind, tapping into a visual economy that’s hard to resist, even at 3daysofdesign.
Take Vipp x Studio KO, for instance. Housed in a cavernous, darkened space, the presentation was pure theatre: a monolithic copper kitchen island glowing under spotlights, pomegranates strewn artfully across its surface, and a smoke machine sending a fine mist into the air, gently fogging up camera lenses.
It was difficult to capture—a challenge—which only made the urge to get the shot more insistent. There was something seductive about it, like trying to photograph a memory as it dissolved. Atmospheric, yes. But performative too.
Tekla, meanwhile, offered something quieter but no less constructed.
Their installation at Charlottenborg presented a series of stylised bedscapes, a celebration of their new broderie anglaise collection. The exhibition was visually pristine: airy rooms, decorative trims, romantic restraint. Beds made to be admired, not slept in. And yet, something about it held.
Perhaps it was the dialogue between material and setting; the broderie anglaise softened further by Charlottenborg’s baroque contours and Italianate light, giving the whole scene the air of a dream stilled. Or perhaps it was the familiarity of the subject matter itself—bedrooms, linens, domestic intimacy—offered up like a question: how much of real life can be styled before it slips into fiction?
By contrast, other brands chose to reveal rather than obscure the creative process.
At &Tradition’s Living Archive, the objects were embedded in a narrative of making, of reading, of evolving. Housed within the library of a four-storey, century-old townhouse on Kronprinsessegade, the space introduced Industrial Facility as the first contemporary British studio to join &Tradition’s collective. Their debut design, Rombe, a modular shelving system conceived to grow with and around its environment, was presented mid-conversation, surrounded by cast metal pieces, 3D-printed models, and early sketches that spoke to process over polish.
Rombe lined the walls, holding not just objects, but stories: a curated selection of books, each chosen by members of &Tradition’s creative community, each paired with a personal anecdote. Their presence turned the room into more than a backdrop; it became a place of pause, of quiet engagement. A space for reading and reflecting, or for joining one of the Disegno-hosted talks exploring the ideas behind the work.
I found myself thinking about the difference between being seen and being understood. The former rewards surface. The latter requires something deeper. And most of what lingered with me this year at 3daysofdesign did not ask to be simply liked. It asked to be felt. In a world that rewards clarity, speed and shareability, it takes a certain defiance to design for intimacy. To say: this may not trend, but it matters. This may not photograph well, but it lives beautifully.
Of course, not all beauty is visual. Some of it is tactile. Temporal. Rooted in weight, texture, scent—the kinds of things that resist capture and insist on presence. As the days passed, I found myself increasingly attuned to those elements: the coolness of brushed steel under my hand, the scratch of woven fabric against a wooden frame, the way light settled on plaster like a hush. At an event like 3daysofdesign, where so much is designed to be seen, the installations that stayed with me were the ones that asked to be felt, and reminded me—gently, insistently—that good design is not a performance. It’s a relationship. One that begins in the body.
III. in the body
So much of modern life asks us to float above our bodies; to live in the scroll, the schedule, the simulation. Move fast. Consume more. Feel less.
Which is why, at this year’s 3daysofdesign, I kept gravitating toward spaces that brought me back to myself, not intellectually, but physically. That reminded me I have hands. Skin. A nervous system. That design isn’t just visual. It’s visceral.
At New Works, that sense of embodiment was everywhere. Their evolving Residence within the storied walls of Bernstorff Palæ, now transformed into a kind of boutique hotel, unfolded as a sequence of moods, each one calibrated with quiet care.
In one room, plush mohair met cool marble. In another—the hotel library—a long, low Shore Modular Sofa in white leopard bouclé stretched the length of the space, flanked by the sculptural Bukowski Lounge Chair in warm brown tones. It was a room made for reading, playing chess, or simply sinking in. From there, the journey continued into the Signature Room, a serene suite composed with quiet attention to detail. Muted shades, natural wood, and tactile textiles set the tone, while soft striped accents added a subtle rhythm. There were no flashy gestures here. Just tactility, balance and a deep respect for scale. The sofas were low and wide, the beds layered but not precious. You could feel the invitation in the furniture: stay a while. touch this. breathe out.
So I did. I settled down in the champagne bar with friends and indulged in a tasting from Taittinger, a newly welcomed residence partner of New Works. The light filtered in just so, glinting off glassware, softening the room’s edges. It felt decadent, but not performative; an unhurried pleasure stitched into the fabric of the space.
Elsewhere, I found the same reverence for physical presence in the unexpected. At an early evening talk at Soho House, I discovered Mukakasa, and their AfriScandi ceramics that hold a groundedness that no image could quite translate. Earthy, heavy, quietly sculptural. The weight of a clay mug in your palm, the subtle warmth that comes not from glaze, but from meaning. From making. From memory.
They were speaking alongside Nada Duele, a brand I hold special affection for, as they hail from Guatemala. I’ve visited their studio in Antigua before, and Luis and I have one of their candlesticks at home. Seeing their work again here, in this new context, brought something full circle. Their exhibition with White Label Project, MANOS y MATERIA, was less a display than a meditation: on touch, on craft, on what endures. Recycled glass, lambswool, hand-carved stone; each piece held the imprint of someone’s hands. And through that, a kind of care. A kind of presence.
There’s something quietly feminist, I think, in this return to the body. In valuing softness and texture and slow use. In recognising domesticity not as limitation but as locus: of ritual, of agency, of art. These pieces weren’t just pretty. They were sensorial. They reminded me that to be moved by design is not always to be awed by it.
Sometimes it’s to be comforted, or grounded, or simply reminded that you are, still, a body moving through space.
And what a relief, in a world of optimisation and overexposure, to touch something real.
IV. cultural care in the age of commerce
It’s easy to get swept up in the beauty of 3daysofdesign. It’s everywhere: generous, elegant, exquisitely staged. For a moment, you forget it’s a commercial fair. But in the quieter in-betweens I started to notice the friction. Between intimacy and scale. Between care and commerce. Between what a brand hopes to say, and what it feels obliged to show.
3daysofdesign has grown in recent years, from a local celebration of Danish design culture into a global stage. With that expansion comes pressure: to impress, to innovate, to perform. And while the fair’s setting gives it an innate softness (sunlight, old buildings, a city that encourages walking), you can still feel the machinery underneath. Beautiful installations powered by sponsorships. Thoughtful products launched to market. Experiences shaped, at least in part, for their shareability.
Still, beneath the commercial polish, something more interesting is taking shape. A shift, not just toward sustainability in the environmental sense, but toward a broader kind of responsibility: emotional, cultural, ethical.
I saw it in the language people used. Words like care, craft, context came up again and again, in design talks, in brand manifestos, in casual conversation. I saw it in the work of studios like Muka Kasa and Nada Duele, whose practices are rooted in heritage and community as much as material. I saw it in the quiet presence of Time & Style, in the painterly tactility of Maison Rhizomes and the thoughtful curation of Design Dialogue, which managed to elevate the emerging without drowning them in concept.
And I felt it most clearly at Other Circle. Tucked away in the industrial quiet of Østerbro, away from the central cluster of venues, it offered something slower. A multidisciplinary showcase where furniture brands, fashion labels, music producers, artists and chefs coexisted, not in a blur of overstimulation, but in a kind of gentle sprawl. It reminded me of the early days of Tent at the London Design Festival, back when it was held at the Truman Brewery and felt more like a discovery than a destination. That same sense of looseness, of creative energy before it’s been codified.
Other Circle didn’t ask to be dissected or documented. It just wanted to be wandered through. The styling was sparse, the boundaries porous, other brands visible in the background, no perfect corners for content capture. Many of the presentations resisted the glossy, styled logic of Instagram entirely: nothing to frame neatly, no clear shot. At an event like 3daysofdesign, where so much hinges on visual performance, this restraint felt quietly radical.
There’s always a risk that intimacy becomes a performance. That emotional resonance becomes the new aesthetic. That slowness becomes a marketing hook.
But even so, I left Copenhagen with the sense that something quieter is taking root. Not as trend, but as instinct. As resistance. A kind of return. To tactility, locality, the body. To care.
All photography © Kate Baxter.