Among the London Design Festival’s most noteworthy destinations, the Mayfair Design District (MDD) marked an expanded return for its 2025 edition, touted as a cultural movement alongside London Fashion Week, PAD London and Frieze week. Running from September 12 – October 31, 2025 (with specific programming for the duration of LDF and for the rest of its run) under the curatorial theme Beyond Boundaries, MDD 2025 features interdisciplinary design, arts, hospitality and immersive experiences as part of its wider programme. The ninth edition of the design event brought together over 60 international brands, artists and institutions across the streets of one of the most affluent yet charged neighbourhoods of London, United Kingdom.

“We’ve helped Mayfair’s unique creative ecosystem to flourish, and we’re only just getting started. Bringing together worlds that rarely meet, MDD unites jewellers, ceramicists, superyachts, Michelin chefs and installation artists to celebrate the future of cultural capital luxury,” said James Malcolm Green, the district’s co-founder, in an official release, reflecting on the purpose and current form of the district.

The theme this year was designated to be a provocation, breaking down conventional bounds and challenging canonical narratives pertaining to the future of luxury art and design. “Beyond Boundaries is a call to dismantle the walls, literal and metaphorical, that have long shaped the creative world. We are celebrating those who choose to work in the grey areas, the unexpected overlaps, the places where design, art, hospitality and fashion intersect with irreverence and purpose,” said Anne-Laure Pingreoun, co-founder and curator of the Mayfair Design District, in an official statement. The programme's highlights (including exhibits specific to LDF 2025 between 13 and 22 September) span exhibitions such as Elemental Resonance - Nature Reimagined at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, London-based Mint Gallery’s Second Skin, D.N.A. x DNA by Lotus, Making a Mark: Collecting Contemporary Metalwork by Lyon & Turnbull, as well as Silverline Furniture’s inaugural exhibition Layers in Time, along with showcases from HOLLY HUNT and APPARATUS.

The Mint Gallery—established in 1998 and one of the district's key venues—is known for its contemporary collections and represents exclusive works by established and upcoming designers. Second Skin, showcased at the design gallery’s Duke Street space from September 13 – 30, 2025, presented works of contemporary designers who treat materials as carriers of transformation, storytelling and emotional resonance. The evocative design exhibition comprised exhibits by established professionals such as Dutch designer Dirk Van Der Kooij, Daniel Stefanita’s Dime Studio and Francesco Tellurico, alongside up-and-coming creators such as Sheyang Li from the Netherlands and French designer Aurélien Veyrat. While Kooij showcased a curated furniture design collection made from repurposed plastics and appliances, Stefanita used industrial and artisanal waste along with nautical industry materials to create colourful and textured product designs, including furniture and lighting.

Additionally, as part of the display, Tellurico’s experimental product designs reinterpreted Italian architectural historian and art theorist Renato De Fusco’s four phases of design for the contemporary world. Li’s metal sculptures were an exploration of transformation and balance, reflecting on alchemy and human experience, while Veyrat sourced bricks from construction waste and obsolete industrial materials to craft sculptures as meditations on fragments, collection and reinvention. The gallery also presented Curated Connections by On & On Designs to showcase Polish designers, including Marek Bimer, Formsophy, Kaska Harasym and Aleksander Oniszh, highlighting the continued relevance and authenticity of Polish design in the global design landscape.

D.N.A. x DNA, an immersive exhibition by automobile brand Lotus, was unveiled at their Mayfair showroom on September 15. Exploring the brand’s creative philosophy, Digital, Natural, Analogue (D.N.A.), the exhibition enabled a dialogue between heritage and possibility. Experimental materials, prototypes and projects from the brand’s automotive design archives—and future—were presented, including the Lotus Eleven, Lotus Type 88B, Lotus Structure Isolation and Dynamics (SID) Prototype and Lotus Type 108 from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, along with the state of the art Lotus Theory 1.

Co-curated in collaboration with the famed luxury hotel, the design district also celebrated contemporary design and culture at the Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, with displays and exhibits launching on September 15. Through site-specific installations and a selection of artworks, the Elemental Resonance - Nature Reimagined exhibition transformed the hotel's spaces using furniture designs and art pieces that channel the four elements—air, water, earth and fire. The sculptural designs responded to the hotel’s original interior design, inviting collectors, tastemakers and creatives to reconsider our relationship with nature and perceive it with a creative lens.

With Making a Mark: Collecting Contemporary Metalwork, Lyon & Turnbull spotlighted some of the country’s most innovative designs by silversmiths. Curated in collaboration with the Glasgow School of Art, which now holds esteemed art patron Dr. Helen Cargill Thompson’s silver collection, the exhibition explored traditional metalwork techniques while celebrating the future of collecting contemporary art. Silverline Furniture’s inaugural exhibition, Layers in Time, celebrated four decades of the brand’s innovative designs and craftsmanship. Presented at the General Assembly Gallery, the show featured eight pieces exploring the intersection of materiality, craftsmanship and form, drawing on over 30 in-house disciplines.

Additionally, American design brand HOLLY HUNT reopened its London flagship after expanding with an exhibition space that reflects its four-decade legacy. From intimate salons to collector previews, the relaunch show comprised a series of events that embodied the brand’s identity and expertise. New York-based interdisciplinary practice APPARATUS also showcased furniture, product and lighting designs, guided by the Modernist ideals of Gesamtkunstwerk. Bluerider ART’s London-debut exhibition, Rising in Fire: Hantoo Art Group - The Making of Taiwan’s Art History, paid homage to Hantoo’s artistic journey through turbulent times. Comprising over 50 paintings, photographs and sculptures by 13 Taiwanese artists, the exhibition underlined the importance of personal experiences and collective memory in creating a contemporary language of visual design.

The district's foray into this year's design festival continues to unfold across a diverse creative landscape, attempting to reinterpret luxury through upcycled design, technology and craftsmanship. True to its curatorial theme, Beyond Boundaries is a suitable meeting point for art, design and technological interventions that provide a platform for established and rising creative voices, as well as engage with the existing institutions, structures and contexts within the district, allowing visitors to explore bold notions in design and the hybrid possibilities it proffers.