What to look for during Toronto’s jam-packed design week | Canada Voices

This year’s design week in Toronto is stacked with boundary-pushing programming, divided between the city-spanning DesignTO Festival (running from Jan. 23 to Feb. 1) and the Interior Design Show (Jan. 22 to 25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre).

For DesignTO, Toronto’s Jamie Wolfond – whose studio boasts a gallery called 8×7 – will host the group exhibition Tape. It’s a show that explores the creative potential of a material that is often taken for granted.

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At the Drake Hotel, Newfoundland-based wallpaper designer Kate Golding has teamed up with Toronto-based East Coaster Myles Burry, an architectural designer and self-taught painter, on the exhibition Drawed’ Through. It will showcase 27 custom mirrors “adorned with floral wallpapers, traditional Newfoundland paint colours, and symbols used in the decoration and details of local buildings,” according to DesignTO’s website.

If you’re in the market for a bit of homegrown design, many exhibitions also include purchasable pieces. Here are a few worth shopping:

Natural instinct

Mjölk, the well-appointed gallery showroom and furniture store in the Junction, hosts Copenhagen-based Norm Architects’ new selection of minimalist-minded decor such as a tony timber coffee table and Washi paper pendant lighting. Norm won the Danish Design Awards’ furniture of the year award in 2025 and, for this most recent product offering, worked with lifestyle brands such as Sweden’s Bonni Bonne and Japan’s Karimoku Case. The two-day exhibition starting Jan. 23 includes a talk on Jan. 24 at 2 p.m.

N-CT04 coffee table by Norm Architects, $5,650 at Mjölk (mjolk.ca).

All together now

Last year, the Montreal design collective Ensemble won DesignTO’s best exhibition award. This year, it returns with the show Pot-au-feu, running from Jan. 23 to 29 at the Plumb, a subterranean exhibition space. Visitors will be met with a range of beguiling pieces including the Baby Bong Stool created by Sangare Studio. Founder Nicholas Sangare notes that the stool is an addition to the existing Bong collection composed of a side table and a coffee table. The petite piece has a base crafted from aluminum, but the seat can be upholstered in an array of textures and colours.

Baby Bong Stool, $1,050 through sangare.ca.

Combined effort

Studio North, the Interior Design Show’s annual display of custom and one-off works from independent Canadian brands and makers, gathers another brilliant group of exhibitors. Ceramic-focused artist Etty Anderson and firewood accessory business Archilog will be there, as will Laboratoire Textile. The latter, a Montreal “micro studio” founded by Lucie Leroux, will present a selection of intricately handmade lamps. The pieces are part of her new Jujube collection that was inspired by berlingots – small, shapely French hard candies. “After years of working in black and white, I wanted to explore colour; particularly a range of bright, fluorescent hues,” Leroux says about the accent lamps available in neon red and lime yellow.

Jujube lamps, $380 through laboratoiretextile.ca.

Rich tapestries

Hand-punched yarn tapestries made by artist Madeleine Bailey will be shown at Carbonic Coffee in Toronto’s Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1. The eight expressive pieces that comprise Bailey’s Within Bloom exhibition are abstracted illustrations of buds, stems and other botanical matter from flora such as foxglove, morning glory and pitcher plant. Each work is made from acrylic yarn on monk’s cloth and took between 10 and 50 hours to finish. While the works at DesignTO are already spoken for, Bailey offers custom tapestries.

Custom yarn tapestries, price on request through madeleinebailey.art.

Fine texture

The Parkdale art gallery General Hardware Contemporary will play host to a collaborative exhibition between local industrial design firm Republic of II by IV and the Portuguese company Viuva Lamego. A Reflection in Time, on from Jan. 22 to Feb. 1, spotlights two handcrafted tile collections called Colinas and Marola, made to emphasize the quality of craft by the 146-year-old bespoke ceramics brand based in Sintra. General Hardware’s intriguing interior plays a part in the show, affording a range of light that amplifies the unique surfaces of the tiles’ patterned forms; Marola has the look of a dreamy vista of waves, while Colinas entices with a striking graphic motif.

Republic of II by IV x Viuva Lamego tiles, price upon request through republicofiibyiv.com.

As part of the 2026 DesignTO festival, Senior Style Editor Haley Steinberg will host Studio Session: Jamie Wolfond on Jan. 30 at the designer’s Toronto studio. Wolfond will discuss how the space and his approach to making influence the way he thinks about designing lighting, furniture and accessories for brands including Muuto, Moooi and Ferm Living. For free tickets and more info, visit designto.org.