The UK’s best interiors event for antiques, design and art is celebrating its fortieth year in 2025. Held in London’s beautiful Battersea Park, a short distance from Sloane Square and King’s Road, the dates for next year are:

  • Winter Fair, 21-26 January 2025
  • Spring Fair, 6-11 May 2025
  • Autumn Fair, 30 September-5 October 2025

Launched specifically for the interiors market in 1985 by a dealer in decorative antiques, The Decorative Fair was an instant hit with designers, decorators and the trade, and has become an internationally renowned thrice-yearly event. Offering an exciting range of stock far broader than any traditional antiques event, in a relaxed and inspiring setting, the Fair goes from strength to strength. Many leading lights of the antiques trade have established their reputation as exhibitors, and collectors and private buyers attend to find fun and beautiful things for their home.

The 130 or so exhibitors are chosen to maintain a creative balance of decorative and formal British and European antiques, 20th century design, fine and decorative art from antiquity to the present day, unexpected treasures as well as affordable treats. As well as furniture, lighting and mirrors there’s a generous sprinkling of specialist dealers in rugs and textiles, garden decoration, glassware, silver, ceramics, fine jewellery, folk and tribal art, vintage watches and couture. The Decorative Fair delivers the perfect cross-section of the best antiques and period design on the market today.

Winter Fair, 21-26 January 2025

The Winter edition of the Fair plays host on the Mezzanine to the London Antique Rug & Textile Art Fair. This annual event features a vibrant, colourful array of antique carpets, rugs, woven art and decorative textiles sourced from across the world, from simple tribal kelims to exotic eastern designs.

A Foyer display, The Architect’s Study, takes its influence from the backdrops to the Fair’s 2025 marketing campaign, drawn by the leading classical architect George Saumarez Smith, and taken from his wonderful Sketchbooks: Collected Measured Drawings and Architectural Sketches. The presentation will inspire visitors with a showcase of furniture, art and objects suitable for a study, reading or office area. All items come from dealers at the Fair and are for sale. Seasonal favourites: fireplace accessories such as decorative fireguards, irons and grates; club fenders and log baskets/containers; mirrors and lighting are particularly in demand in January; cosy upholstered seating such as Howard chairs and Victorian sofas; useful occasional tables; glassware.

Spring Fair, 6-11 May 2025

The Spring Fair typically has a focus on decoration for outdoor spaces and garden rooms, and private buyers are often sourcing sculpture and statuary, cast iron planters and urns, étagères, garden furniture in both classic and more unusual styles made in wood, metal and stone. Pieces often come direct from source to the Fair still wearing their accumulations of moss and weathering – highly desired by some buyers! Also popular are fountains, vessels for water features, vintage pots and timeworn ‘gardenalia’ (trugs, watering cans, etc) for the potting shed. Architectural pieces include garden gates, ancient doors, carved screens, decorative columns and plasterwork.

In Spring 2024 The House Directory Live was launched on the Mezzanine, a new event with artisan makers and contemporary decoration brands focusing on bespoke craftsmanship for interiors. This returns in May 2025. The House Directory, the UK’s leading directory for interior and garden design and decoration, will present a hand-picked collection of established and emerging home suppliers and services drawn from their extensive membership.

Autumn Fair, 30 September-5 October 2025

The 40th Birthday Edition!! The first ever Decorative Fair opened in September 1985, filling a large gap in the market for antiques that at the time could not be sourced at conventional fairs (and on the whole, still can’t). Interior decorators wanted painted antiques and classic ‘brown’ furniture with an emphasis on visual appeal, rather than importance. Practical, accessible pieces that work with everyday living rather than saved for best, but also furniture and objects that make a decorative impact, and a statement in any room – stand-out designs, the unusual and unexpected.

The Fair remains steadfast in continuing to offer what decorators and tastemakers want; its exhibitors are dedicated to hunting down desirable objects, and displaying them with inspiration. Over the past four decades, the Fair has redefined the world of antiques for interiors, broadening its scope to embrace art deco, then mid-century modern, post-modern and latterly, brutalist design. The dateline now for most items set at 1979. It was the first fair to include industrial and architectural pieces, allow weathered as well as pristine garden antiques, and contemporary art alongside traditional fine art. The success and longevity of The Decorative Fair draws dealers from the upper echelons of the trade to exhibit as well as young, up-and-coming names. It attracts international collectors who might also be seen visiting the likes of Frieze alongside homeowners hunting for one-off objects and pre-loved gems to make their interior decoration unique.

Many other fairs in recent years have added the word ‘decorative’ to their title in emulation, but the original Decorative Fair in Battersea Park, London remains the best.

Seasonal tips: the autumn period often sees the start of big new projects in the trade, and decorators are out in force sourcing the bones of a room. Larger furniture items, cabinets and sideboards, dressers and buffets, sofas and dinner tables, desks and bookcases, mirrors, chandeliers and wall lights. Unusual decorative objects such as rugs, wall panels and tapestries, a painted secretaire or unusual console or centre table, that can create a focal point to a design scheme.