View Tom Dixon revels in metal in Notting Hill

Designer Tom Dixon has had an illustrious 40-year career that has seen his furniture and lighting become ubiquitous in restaurants and hotels the world over. But his early work had a decidedly more punk aesthetic, as his retrospective – Tom Dixon: Metalhead – at Themes & Variations can attest.

In 1987, the gallery showed a series of welded metal chairs fashioned from scavenged objects by the young, up-and-coming designer. They featured everything from kitchen frying pans and bicycle forks to street railings. These delightful mash-ups star alongside some of his greatest hits and new works in metal that tap back into this experimental spirit, while revelling in the handmade. Come along and pull up a pew.