Maison & Objet Paris Interiors Show 2014

We were lucky enough to visit Paris' prestigious Maison & Objet interiors show on Monday. After a torturous 3 30 am start, we made our way, via Le Shuttle, to Paris. The drive was long, but definitely worth it for one of Europe's most renowned interiors shows. It will take a while before we know whether we'll be working with any of the brands we saw, but it seems probable.

A few notes and takeaways from the show:

-It is massive, really massive. We've been to a whole host of other interiors shows, but the Paris Nord Villepinte exhibition centre is absolutely titanic.

-The standard of exhibitor is exceptionally high, which makes bad designs stick out like a sore thumb. Some of the smaller stands, especially in the ethnic design hall, looked like they had arrived 10 minutes before the show.

-However the big brands, such as our friends at Ethnicraft, really impressed. We'll be updating you soon on Ethnicraft's new collections, but I can assure you they are coming from some new and exciting angles.

-The organisation of the show is really impressive. There were constant shuttle buses from the car park to exhibition centre, which must have only been 400m apart. It was pretty cold, so we took advantage.

-We saw the Eiffel Tower in the horizon, which just about satisfied our tourism needs.

-The brand representatives at the show have my respect. To maintain such a positive disposition for the entire five days is incredible. That goes for all of them. They were all more than happy to have a chat.

-There was a big theme of extremely distressed and very rustic furniture. The reclaimed driftwood style was one of our favourites, but it can be pretty difficult to sell very specific bespoke pieces.

-There were so many people who looked exactly like you'd expect a Parisian fashion and interiors designer would look like - Kind of like Cruella Deville.

-I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that wearing official accreditation around your neck makes you feel like the king of the world. I was walking with so much swagger.

-The best French word we used was 'ensemble'.